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LIBRARY 


University  of  California. 


Gli^T   OF" 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  i8g4. 
Accessions  No.  S!^'^lJ~(o      Class  No. 


THE    SILENCE 


AND    THE 


VOICES    OF    GOD, 


WITH   OTHER   SERMONS. 


BY 


FREDERIC  W.  FARRAR,  D.D.,  F.R.S. 

Late  Fellow  of  Trinity  Coll^re,  Cambridge ;  Master  of  Marlborough  College, 
and  Chaplain  in  Ordinary  to  the  Qaeen. 


;iriri7ERsiTT 


#!?% 


NEW  YORK: 
E.    P.    BUTTON    &    COMPANY,  . 

713    BROADWAY, 

1875. 


F'i 


s"in>^L 


TO 

THE    EEV.    CANON    WESTCOTT,    D.D., 

REGIUS    PROFESSOR    OF    DIVINITY    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY 
OP    CAMBRIDGE, 

I    DEDICATE    THESE    SERMONS 

WITH  CORDIAL  GRATITUDE 

AND 

WITH    SINCERE    ADMIRATION    AND    ESTEEM. 


;UFI7EIlSlT7l 


PREFACE. 


The  three  first  sermons,  which  give  their  title  to 
this  little  volume,  were  preached  before  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge,  and  are  published  by  the 
request  of  the  Vice-Chancellor.  I  have  added  to 
them  a  few  other  sermons  in  deference  to  the  wishes 
of  those  who  heard  them  delivered,  and  desired  to 
possess  them  in  a  permanent  form. 


CONTENTS. 


L 

Silence  and  Voices. 

Pagk. 

1  Sam.  iiL  10.    Speak ;  for  ihj  servant  heareth 11 

n. 

The  Voice  of  Conscience. 
Bom.  ii.  15.    Their  conscience  also  bearing  witness 89 


m. 

The  Voice  of  History. 

Ps.  xlvi.  6.  The  heathen  make  much  ado,  and  the  kingdoms 
are  moved ;  but  God  hath  shewed  His  voice,  and  the  earth 
shall  melt  away 

IV. 

What  Gk>D  Requires. 

MiCAH  vi.  6-5.  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord, 
and  bow  myself  before  the  high  Grod  ?  shall  I  come  before 
Him  with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  Will 

(vii) 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

Faoe 
the  Lord  be  pleased  With  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten 
thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for 
my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my 
soul  ?  He  hath  shewed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good ;  and 
what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ? 93 


V. 

Avoidance  of  Temptation. 

Matthew  iv.  5-7.  Then  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  the 
holy  City,  and  setteth  Him  on  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple, 
and  saith  unto  Him,  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  cast  Thy- 
self down :  for  it  is  written,  He  shall  give  His  angels 
charge  concerning  Thee :  and  in  their  hands  they,  shall 
bear  Thee  up,  lest  at  any  time  Thou  dash  Thy  foot  against 
a  stone.  Jesus  said  unto  him,  It  is  written  again,  Thou 
shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God 107 

VL 

The  Conquest  over  Temptation. 

1  Cor.  X.  13.  There  hath  no  temptation  taken  you  but  such 
as  is  common  to  man :  but  God  is  faithful,  who  will  not 
suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above  that  ye  are  able  ;  but  will 
with  the  temptation  also  make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye 
may  be  able  to  bear  it. 125 

VH. 

Wisdom  and  Knowledge. 

Proverbs  iv.  7.  Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing ;  therefore 
get  wisdom  :  and  with  all  thy  getting  get  understanding.  147 


CONTENTS.  IX 

vm. 

"Working  With  our  Might. 

Paok. 
2  Chron.  xxxi.  21.     And  in  every  work  that  lie  began  in  the 
service  of  the  House  of  God,  and  in  the  Law,  and  in  tlie 
Commandments,  to  seek  his  God,  he  did  it  with  all  his 
heart,  and  prospered 165 

IX. 

Pharisees  and  FnBLiOAN& 

Luke  xviii.  9.  And  he  spake  this  parable  unto  certain  that 
trusted  in  themselves  that  they  were  righteous,  and  de- 
spised others 183 

• 

X. 

Too  Late. 

Luke  xix.  42.  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in 
this  thy  day,  the  things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace  1 
but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes 207 

XI. 

Prayer,  the  antidote  to  Sorrow. 

Luke  xxiL  44.    And  being  in  an  agony,  He  prayed 225 


I. 

SILENCE  AND  VOICES. 

"  Muto  non  e,  come  altri  credi,  il  cielo 
Sordi  siam  noi,  a  cui  1'  orecchio  serra 
Lo  strepito  insolente  della  terra." 


Speak,  for  thy  servant  heareth. — 1  Sam.  iii.  10.* 


Man  is  a  mystery  to  himself,  and  he  is  sur- 
rounded by  mysteries  unnumbered.  In  the  or- 
dinary practical  business  of  life, — in  the  common 
task  of  everyday  existence, — ^lie  finds  indeed  no 
difficulty ;  and  for  millions  of  his  race,  for  millions 
who  spend  their  days  in  servile  toil,  and  whose 
horizon  is  spanned  by  the  little  circle  of  ordinary 
interests, — the  *  Enigmas  of  Life'  would  be  a 
meaningless  expression.  Absorbed  in  a  sordid  or  a 
sensual  present,  they  have  never  wondered  whence 
they  came,  or  whither  they  are  going ; — they  neither 
question  of  the  future,  nor  dream  about  the  past. 
It  was  the  daily  self-examination  of  one  of  the 
most  eminent  of  saints,  Bernarde,  ad  quid  venisti  ? 
"  Bernard,   for  what  purpose  art  thou  here  ?  "  but 

*  Preached  before  the  University  of  Cambridge,  April  27,  1873. 

(11) 


12  SILENCE   AND    VOICES. 

there  are  whole  races  of  mankind,  to  whom,  shut  in 
by  the  narrowing  walls  of  natural  dulness  or  invol- 
untary ignorance,  such  questions  have  never  taken 
shape.  And  yet  these  too,  my  brethren,  are  our 
brothers;  these  too  are  heirs  of  our  common  im- 
mortality: for  these  too.  the  great  sun  shines  in 
heaven,  and  the  pure  dew  falls  upon  the  sleeping 
fields;  over  these,  no  less  than  over  ourselves, 
broods  unseen,  yet  ever  present,  the  atmosphere  of 
Eternity  ;  and  it  is  as  possible,  we  believe,  for  these, 
as  for  earth's  most  gifted  and  most  glorious  chil- 
dren, to  stand  redeemed  before  the  Great  White 
Throne.  And  why  ? — Because,  under  all  diver- 
sities, the  essential  condition  of  mankind  is  one ; 
because,  whatever  we  may  fancy,  God  is  oh  TrpoauTro- 
XijTZTrjg  —  no  rcspccter  of  persons  ;  —  because  intelli- 
gence or  dulness,  knowledge  or  ignorance,  rank  or 
obscurity,  wealth  or  indigence,  these,  and  all  other 
evanescent  or  artificial  distinctions  between  man 
and  man,  are  non-existent  in  the  eyes  of  God,  or 
rather  are  only  existent  as  conditions  which  in  no 
wise  affect  the  innermost  reality  of  his  being ; — 
which  reality  depends  on  this  alone, — whether  Man 
is  seeing  the  face,  and  holding  the  hand,  and  lis- 
tening to  the  voice  of  God,  or  whether  that  face 


SILENCE    AND    VOICES.  13 

has  vanished  from  him,  that  hand  been  withdrawn, 
that  voice  has  first  sunk  into  silence,  then  faded 
from  memory,  then  been  banished  from  belief. 

My  brethren,  in  this  matter  let  us  not  be  de 
ceived.  We  of  this  land,  of  this  century,  of  this 
University  are,  by  God's  grace,  heirs  of  the  treas- 
uries of  the  world.  Nothing  profound  has  been 
ever  thought,  nothing  enchanting  ever  imagined, 
nothing  noble  ever  uttered,  nothing  saintly  or 
heroic  ever  done,  which  is  not  or  may  not  be  ours. 
For  us  Plato  and  Shakespeare  thought ;  for  us 
Dante  and  Milton  sang ;  for  us  Bacon  and  Newton 
toiled ;  for  us  Angelo  and  Raphael  painted ;  for 
us  Benedict  and  Francis  lived  saintly  lives ;  for 
the  heritage  of  our  liberty  have  myriads  of  heroes 
perished  on  the  battle-field,  and  for  the  purity  of 
our  religion  hundreds  of  martyrs  sighed  away  their 
souls  amid  the  flames.  But  let  us  not  pride  our- 
selves on  this  our  glorious  inheritance,  or  falsely 
dream  that  this  alone  will  avail  us  anything,  or 
that  we  are  favorite  children  in  the  great  family  of 
God.  Certainly  since  to  us  much  has  been  given, 
from  us  much  shall  be  required ;  but,  nevertheless, 
the  poorest  and  most  squalid  savage,  the  most  op- 
pressed and  ignorant  slave,  shares  with  us  a  blessing 


14  SILENCE   AND   VOICES. 

and  a  mystery  incomparably  more  transcendent  than 
any  of  these, — as  much  more  transcendent  as  the 
Bun  is  vaster  and  brighter  than  the  earth, — ^in  that, 
to  all  of  -us  alike  God  speaks ;  in  that  for  all  of  us 
alike,  Christ  died.  To  these,  no  less  than  to  us,  it 
is  possible  so  to  live,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of 
God,  that  Life,  even  amid  its  sin  and  suffering,  may 
still  echo  with  the  distant  songs  of  a  lost  Paradise ; 
and  so  to  die,  that  death  may  be  none  other  than 
the  house  of  God,  and  the  gate  of  heaven.  The 
earthly  gifts  which  make  man  pride  himself  above 
his  fellow-man  are  all  perishable ;  it  is  those  things 
only  which  cannot  be  shaken  that  shall  remain. 
"  Know"  (and,  when  we  read  such  utterances,  and 
contrast  them  with  the  moaning,  groping,  dis- 
believing, despairing  faithlessness  of  an  increasing 
mass  of  modern  literature,  we  seem  to  be  breathing 
the  atmosphere  of  another  and  a  better  world !) 
"  Know  that  all  are  equal  before  the  Lord,  and  that 
men  are  born  for  holiness  as  the  trees  of  the  forest 
for  light."  Yes,  holiness  is  the  one  thing  need- 
ful ;  whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall  fail ; 
whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease  ;  whether 
there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away ;  earthly 
learning,  and  earthly  endowments   are   but  as  the 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  15 

grass,  and  as  the  flower :  "  the  grass  withereth,  the 
flower  fadeth,  because  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  bloweth 
upon  it :  the  grass  withereth,  the  flower  fadeth, 
but  the  Word  of  our  God  shall  stand  for  ever."  * 

The  Word  of  our  God — that,  and  that  alone; 
and  man,  only  as  he  listens  to  that  Word,  only  as 
he  is  in  harmony  with  that  God.  The  earth  may 
be  shattered,  and  the  heavens  pass  like  a  shrivelled 
scroll ;  but  not  the  soul  of  man,  which  hath  become 
partaker  of  God's  Eternity.  The  one  thing  then 
of  real  and  infinite  importance  to  us,  is,  not  the 
fruit  of  our  studies,  not  the  success  of  our  efibrts, 
not  the  things  for  which  men  toil  and  weary  them- 
selves and  sigh,  not  anything  whereby  we  are  dis- 
tinguished from  other  men,  but  this  only,  which 
afiects  us  in  common  with  all  other  men,  whether 
our  ears  are  quick  to  hear,  and  our  hearts  zealous  to 
obey  the  voice  of  God.  To  do  this  is  safety :  not 
to  do  this  is  misery  and  failure :  nay,  to  do  this  is 
life,  and  to  do  it  not  is  to  make  life  itself  an  in- 
itiation into  death.  And  therefore,  for  these  three 
Sundays  on  which  it  is  my  high  privilege  to  ad- 
dress you,  I  would  speak,  feebly  indeed  and  un- 
worthily, but  yet  earnestly,  on  some  fragment  of 
*  Is.  xl.  7,  8. 


16  SILENCE   AND   VOICES. 

this  great  subject — The  Silence  and  the  Voices  of 
God. 

And  surely  the  subject  is  not  a  needless  one. 
It  may  be  a  sad  and  startling  fact,  but  it  is  a  fact, 
that,  more  and  more  among  us,  more  and  more 
after  eighteen  Christian  centuries,  more  and  more, 
though  History  has  been  full  of  lightnings  and 
thunderings  and  voices,  yea,  though  the  Word  of 
God  has  been  made  flesh  and  tabernacled  among  us, 
there  are  men,  men  alas  !  of  learning  and  genius, 
who  not  only  refuse  to  listen  to  God's  voice,  but 
even  deny  that  God  has  ever  spoken,  deny  even 
that  He  is.  Yes,  in  the  dismal  advance  of  atheism, 
not  content  to  repudiate  the  Lord  that  bought,  and 
the  Spirit  that  striveth  with  them,  men  are  begin- 
ning openly  to  debate,  in  the  blindness  of  their  self- 
sufficiency,  whether  there  be  so  much  as  a  God  who 
created  them.  And  when  we  meet  with  such,  what 
shall  we  say  ?  My  brethren,  the  proof  of  God's  exist- 
ence wholly  transcends  the  region  of  argument,  nor 
is  it  any  proposition  which  can  be  coldly  reasoned 
out  by  the  finite  understanding.  If  indeed  a  man  of 
base  motives  and  guilty  deeds,  a  blasphemer,  a  mur- 
derer, an  adulterer,  one  whose  life  is  an  organized 
battle  against  the  will  and  law  of  God,  if  such  a  man 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  17 

denies  God,  of  what  use  is  it  to  say  to  him  with  the 
fervid  Father,  Et  tu  tamen  eum  nosti,  dum  odtisi  ?* 
Nay  rather,  must  we  not  say  to  him  that  he  is  too 
deeply  pledged  and  enlisted  against  the  truth  to  be 
convinced  of  it  ?  that  as  he  has  chosen  to  live  having 
no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world,  so  for  him 
there  is  no  God  in  the  world  ?  He  hath  said  it  in 
his  heart,  and  who,  in  such  a  matter,  shall  neu- 
tralize the  deadly  bias  of  his  will  ?  what  more  can 
we  say  to  him,  and  what  better  can  we  hope  for 
him,  than  that,  if  the  weak  words  of  man  fail  to 
pierce  the  hardened  intellect,  God's  own  power  may, 
through  strange  Providences,  correct  and  convert 
His  erring  child  and  lead  him  by  the  hand  into  the 
Temple  of  a  pure  Faith  through  the  open  portals 
of  a  holier  and  nobler  life  ?  But  when  a  man  of 
whom  we  know  no  evil,  when  a  man  of  whose  life 
Charity  is  sure  that  it  is  honorable  and  innocent, 
when  such  a  man  says  with  Diagoras,  that  there 
is  no  God,  or  with  Protagoras  that  he  cannot  tell 
whether  there  be  or  not,f  then  if  the  invisible  things 

*  Tert.  de  testim.  Animae,  iiL 

t  laaoL  yap  ovx  iKdvreg  kol  Xiyovatv  aKOvreg  .  .  .  k&v  fxr)  elvat 
pfjq  o)C  Aiaydpa^  kclv  ayvoelv  tl  tprj^  wf  lipuraydpaQ.  Max.  Tyr. 
Dissert,  xvii.  ep.  5.  Cic.  de  Nat.  Deorum.  I.  i.  Diog.  Laert.  ix.  51. 
Arist.  Niib.  830,  etc 

2 


18  SILENCE   AND    VOICES. 

of  Him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  be  not  clearly 
seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead, — ^if  God's  works 
be  disregarded,  is -it  likely  that  Man's  logic  will  avail  ? 
Can  we  construct  a  syllogism,  more  overpowering  for. 
his  conviction  than  "  the  starry  heavens  above  ?  "  can 
we  write  a  book  of  evidences  more  potent  to  his  con- 
science than  "the  moral  law  within?'*'  A  society 
for  the  defence  of  Christianity  may  have  its  own  work 
to  do,  but  will  it  persuade  the  unbeliever,  if  the 
voices  of  the  sea  and  the  mountains  fail.?  A  man 
may  stand,  if  he  will,  amid  the  mirth  and  music 
of  a  breathing  summer  day,  when  all  the  air  is  vocal 
with  whispering  trees,  and  singing  birds,  and  the 
quivering  of  insect  wings,  and  assert  to  us,  con- 
temptuously, that  all  is  silent :  what  can  we  answer 
him  save  that  it  is  silent  to  the  dull  deaf  ear  ?  A 
man  may  close  his  eyes  if  he  will  till  they  are  blind, 
and  then,  standing  in  the  burning  noonday,  may 
defy  us  to  prove  that  there  is  a  sun  in  heaven : 
what  need  we  care  to  say  to  him  in  answer,  but  that 
we  see  its  splendor,  but  that  we  feel  its  warmth  ? 
What  can  we  say  to  such,  but  that  which  even  a 
heathen  said,  "  God  is  within  thee,  and  is  thy  God ; 
thou  carriest   God  about  with  thee  and  knowest 


SILENCE   AND  VOICES.  19 

Him  not."*  And  may  we  not  say,  my  brethren, 
that  as  for  ourselves  we  know  God ;  we  hear  His 
voice ;  we  see  His  face ;  His  name  is  on  our  fore- 
heads ?  In  joy  He  increases  and  purifies  our  joy ; 
in  sorrow  He  heals  and  sanctifies  our  sorrows ;  in 
sin  He  punishes  and  forgives  our  sins.  And  you, 
self-honoring  children  of  a  cold  and  faithless  gen- 
eration, if  such  be  here,  you,  who  have  invested  so 
much  of  modern  thought  with  the  clammy  and 
creeping  mist  of  your  uncertainties  and  your  nega- 
tions, if  ye  cannot  yourselves  believe  in  God,  be 
content  at  least  in  your  own  sad  non-belief;  and, 
however  much  ye  may  be  puffed  up  by  the  pride  of 
an  imaginary  emancipation,  try  not,  in  your  cruel 
kindness,  in  your  condescending  pity,  try  not  to 
rob  us  of  Him.  Try  not  to  induce  us  to  exchange  for 
your  mean  and  flickering  tapers  our  *^  offspring  of 
heaven  first-born ; "  or  to  enlighten  our  darkness  by 
putting  out  our  sun.  Or  try  your  very  utmost,  but 
it  will  be  in  vain.  We  too  are  biassed.  We  desire 
not  this  strong  delusion  sent  us  that  we  should 
believe  a  lie.     For  to  lose  God  is  not,  as  you  say, 

*  6  deoc  evSov  earl  /cat  6  vfierepo^  6ai/i(jv  eori  debx  Tepi^ipeif 
dhig  Kai  ayvoeZf.     Epict.  Dissert,  i.  14,  16. 


20  SILENCE    AND    VOICES. 

to  be  robbed  of  some  ^^  mentis  gratissimus  error  ;*' 
it  is  to  lose  our  life.  But  we  cannot  lose  it.  Where 
you  argue,  we  feel.  Where  you  doubt,  we  know, 
Where  you  hesitate,  we  are  certain.  Where  you 
deny,  we  live.  Hold  yourselves,  if  ye  will  and  must, 
to  be  the  sport  and  prey  of  every  angry  circumstance 
and  every  pitiless  law,  but  we  will  trust  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  our  God.  In  the  cold,  in  the  storm,  in 
the  darkness,  prefer  if  ye  will  to  wander  and 
stumble,  without  a  comforter  and  without  a  friend, 
but  we  will  grope  for  our  Father's  hand.  And 
never  have  we,  never  hath  any  man  groped  for  that 
hand  in  vain.  '^  Sanabiles  fecit  nationes  terrae" 
Man  may  have  gone  astray,  but  not  hopelessly ;  he 
may  have  been  smitten  with  a  leprosy,  but  it  is  not 
incurable.  Oh,  be  it  a  little  misfortune  or  a  mighty 
agony,  be  it  a  childish  trouble  or  a  boyish  folly,  be 
it  a  transient  disappointment  or  a  lifelong  difficulty, 
be  it  a  sudden  dereliction  or  a  besetting  sin,  ye  who 
have  been  sad,  ye  who  have  been  weary,  ye  who 
have  been  sick  with  discontent  or  self-disgust,  I 
challenge  you  to  say  whether  you  have  ever  sought 
Him  and  found  his  promise  fail  ?  whether  you  have 
ever  sought  Him  without  His  holding  forth  to  you 


SILENCE    AND   VOICES.  21 

in  the  very  bitterness  of  death  a  green  leaf  from  that 
Tree  of  Life  that  grows  for  the  healing  of  the  nations 
in  the  Paradise  of  God  ? 

So  then  although,  more  and  more,  the  icy  wind 
of  atheism,  stealing  through  our  literature  with 
almost  inarticulate  whisper,  is  chilling  the  hearts 
of  many,  yet  to  counteract  it,  except  by  noble  ex- 
amples, except  by  Christian  lives,  appears  to  be  but 
a  futile  labor.  But  there  are  myriads  more,  who, 
though  they  do  not  doubt  the  existence  of  God,  yet 
deny  His  Providence.  An  image  is  before  them, 
but  there  is  Silence.  For  them  He  is  inanimate 
as  an  idol.  Clouds  indeed  and  darkness  are  round 
about  Him,  but  righteousness  and  judgment  are 
not  the  habitation  of  His  seat.  The  voices  of 
man, — ^voices  of  blasphemy,  voices  of  anguish,  voices 
of  adoration, — ^may  break  the  eternal  stillness,  but 
they  reach  Him  not,  nor  careth  He,  nor  speaketh. 
How  should  He  care .?  How  should  He  speak  ? 
Hath  he  not  abdicated  in  favor  of  His  own  works  ? 
What  mean  ye  by  your  God,  they  say  to  us.  What 
is  He  but  the  Universe  ?  What  is  He  but  a  vast 
formless  Fate  ?  What  but  a  dread  magnificence  of 
Nature  ?  What,  but  a  fearful  Uniformity  of 
Laws  ?    What,  to  take  the  latest  of  these  philo- 


22  SILENCE   AND   VOICES. 

sophic  utterances,  what  but  "a  stream  of  tendency 
flowing  through  the  ages  ?  " 

And  this,  my  brethren,  if  it  be  not  unbelief, 
is  just  as  hopeless  and  just  as  comfortless.  We 
cannot  trust  in  a  blind  destiny.  We  cannot  love  an 
awful  uniformity  of  laws.  "  A  stream  of  tendency 
flowing  through  the  ages "  may  be  a  very  philosoph- 
ical conception  of  the  God  adopted  by  the  insight  or 
the  criticism  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but,  unlike 
"our  Father  which  is  in  heaven/'  it  has  "no  ear  for 
prayer,  no  heart  for  sympathy,  no  arm  to  save." 
This  God  is  not  our  God,  nor  can  it  be  our  guide  for 
ever  and  ever.  And  what  follows  ?  If  God  be  not, 
or  be  as  though  He  were  not,  then  man  is  not  or  is 
as  though  he  were  not.  For  what  then  is  man  ? 
What  but  a  phantom,  a  vapor,  a  nothing, — the 
shadow  of  a  dream  moving  amid  dreams  and  shadows ; 
at  best  one  dying  leaf  in  an  illimitable  forest ;  one  un- 
regarded rain  drop  in  some  immeasurable  sea  ?  And 
so,  if  life  be  but  a  semblance  and  death  but  an  ex- 
tinction, and  if,  amid  an  infinitude  of  Time  peopled 
by  myriads  of  existences,  and  an  infinitude  of  Space 
teeming  with  innumerable  worlds,  man  be  an  atom 
tossed  out  of  nothingness,  and  destined  to  become 
but  dust  "blown  about  the  desert  or  sealed  within 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  23 

the  iron  hills;" — if  this  be  so, — oh,  dreary,  dreary- 
gospel  of  a  darkness  taking  itself  for  exceptional 
enlightenment! — if  God  be  nothing,  and  Man  be 
nothing,  what  then  is  Virtue,  and  what  is  Truth? 
Virtue  forsooth  —  though  the  Prophets  and  the 
Apostles  and  the  Martyrs -knew  it  not — ^is  prudence; 
it  is  expedience ;  it  is  utility ;  it  is  enlightened  self- 
interest;  it  is,  to  use  their  favorite  formula,  the 
"greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number."  And 
Truth  is  a  subjective  impression  ultimately  resolva- 
ble into  particular  conditions  of  the  brain.  My 
brethren,  who  can  be  moved  by  these  dim  abstrac- 
tions, by  these  coarse  materialisms.?  Who  is  the 
Lord — if  this  be  He — who  is  the  Lord  that  I  should 
obey  his  voice  ?  All  is  vanity,  delusion,  emptiness. 
All  meaning  is  wiped  out  of  life,  as  when  a  man 
wipeth  a  dish,  wiping  and  turning  it  upside  down ; 
"w^  solum  certum  sit  nihil  esse  certi  nee  miserius 
quiequam  Jiomine  nee  superhius."  *  If  we  sin,  what 
does  it  matter  to  blind  infinite  Forces  which  may 
crush  us,  but  cannot  love  ?  If  we  repent,  what  will 
the  iEons  and  the  Spaces  care  for  our  repentance  ? 
Are  we  any  better  than  what  the  Greek  atheist  said 
we  were,  "dumb  animals,  driven  through  the  mid- 

*  Pliny. 


24  SILENCE    AND   VOICES. 

night  upon  a  rudderless  vessel,  over  a  stormy  sea  ?  '^ 
"  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  Yes, 
ther.  that  bitter  description  is  true, — "Seated  be- 
tween the  tomb  of  his  fathers  whom  he  has  dis- 
owned, and  the  cradle  of  his  children  for  whom  he 
feels  only  a  bitter  pity,  man  is  no  more  than  a  mis- 
erable puppet,  condemned  to  play  I  know  not  what 
lugubrious  comedy  before  I  know  not  what  icy  spec- 
tators.'' ••' 

And  though  these  opinions,  and  such  as  these, 
have  for  the  young  all  the  "fascination  of  corrup- 
tion,"— ^though  they  have  all  that  destroying  and 
agonizing  beauty  which  the  great  painter  infused 
into  the  horror  of  the  Gorgon's  countenance,  on 
which  men  must  gaze  though  it  turned  them  into 
stone,f — yet  God  forbid  that  there  should  be  many 
of  you,  my  younger  hearers,  who  should  have  subtly 
slidden  into  such  treacherous  unbeliefs.  Yet  they 
spring  alas !  from  sources  far  beneath  the  soil ;  and 
many  who  have  never  said  "  There  is  no  God,"  have 
yet  found  a  self-deceiving  excuse  for  sin  in  "  Tush, 
God  careth  not  for  it.  He  hideth  away  his  face,  and 
shall  never  see  it."  And  alas !  the  very  best  among 
us  all  fails  too  often  to  realize,  as  a  guiding  thought 

*  Montalembert.  f  The  Medusa  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci. 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  25 

in  life,  that  God  does  speak,  and  speaks  to  us,  and 
speaks  distinct  messages  in  voices  awfully  articulate ; 
or,  even  when  we  believe  it  with  all  our  hearts,  how 
little  are  we  ready  always,  in  the  midnight  as  in  the 
noonday,  to  say,  with  bowed  head  and  folded  hands, 
"  Si)eak  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth."  The  Jews, 
in  a  legend  that  is  not  meaningless,  tell  us  how,  on 
the  Mount,  the  great  law-giver  needed  no  human 
sustenance,  because  the  subtle  harmonies  of  the  uni- 
verse so  filled  his  soul  as  to  satisfy  and  sustain  his 
whole  being  with  their  heavenly  diapason ;  but  when 
he  came  down  out  of  the  rolling  clouds,  the  vesture 
of  decay  closed  his  ears  and  he  heard  no  longer, 
and  hungered  for  earthly  food.  Is  it  not  so  with 
us  ?  Times  there  are  when  we  hear  the  voice  of 
God  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day, 
yea,  when  we  hear  it  all  the  day  long ;  and  there  are 
other  times  when  we  too  listen  with  fainting  hearts 
to  those  who  tell  us  that  we  have  but  mistaken  the 
pulse  of  our  own  beings  for  a  sound  above  us ;  and 
that  the  universe  wherein  we  live  has  long  been 
smitten  with  the  curse  of  silence.  Oh,  they  do  not 
lack  for  arguments !  Around  every  step  of  our  ca- 
reer on  earth  the  mystery  of  the  Infinite  rises  like  a 
wall  of  adamant,  and  the  limitation  of  our  faculties 


26  SILENCE    AND    VOICES. 

falls  like  a  curtain  of  darkness.  Look,  they  say,  at  all 
this  pain  and  misery  and  evil ;  how  is  it  reconcilable 
with  the  Being  of  a  God  at  once  omnipotent  and 
all-loving  ?  Look  at  the  myriads  of  mankind  who 
have  lived  only  as  the  beasts  live,  and  died  as  the 
fool  dieth.  Look  at  all  the  evidences  of  "insane 
religion,  degraded  art,  merciless  war,  sullen  toil,  de- 
testable pleasure  and  vain  hope  or  vile,  in  which  the 
nations  of  the  world  have  lived ;  so  that  it  seems  as 
if  the  race  itself  were  still  half-serpent,  not  yet  ex- 
tricated from  the  clay,  a  lacertine  brood  of  bitter- 
ness, the  track  of  it  on  the  leaf  a  glittering  slime, 
and  in  the  sand  a  useless  furrow;"*  or  in  lan- 
guage less  full  of  scorn,  "see,"  they  say,  "how  gen- 
eration after  generation  of  the  young  rush  sanguine 
into  the  arena,  generation  after  generation  of  the 
old  step  weary  into  the  grave ;  how  the  beautiful 
and  the  noble  are  cut  off  in  youth,  while  the  stained 
and  mean  drag  their  ignominy  through  a  long  career. 
Look  at  the  chastisements  that  do  not  chasten ;  the 
trials  that  do  not  purify ;  the  sorrows  that  do  not 
olevate ;  the  pains  and  privations  that  harden  the 
tender  heart,  but  do  not  soften  the  stubborn  will; 
the  virtues  that  dig  their  own  grave ;  the  light  that 

*  Buskin. 


SILENCE    AND   VOICES.  27 

leads  astray."  *  Or  need  we  look,  they  ask,  beyond 
our  own  little  lives  ?  how  often  is  the  folly  of  a  mo- 
ment the  anguish  of  a  life !  In  one  instant  a  deed 
is  done,  a  choice  is  made. 

And  there  cotneth  a  mist,  and  a  weeping  rain, 
And  life  is  never  the  same  again : 

yet  no  voice  from  heaven  speaks,  no  angel  flashes 
from  the  blue.  And  if  the  light  does  not  shine,  why 
at  least  does  not  the  thunder  roll  ?  men  do  wrong  and 
prosper ;  men  do  right  and  die  in  defeat  and  dark- 
ness. On  the  fields  which  the  usurer  has  wrung 
from  the  orphan,  the  sun  shines  and  the  harvest 
waves;  and  no  midnight  dreams  haunt  the  pillow 
of  the  seducer,  as  he  lies  down  to  sleep  as  softly  as 
the  innocent  and  the  just.  "Blaspheme  God  as 
you  will ;  deny  God,  if  you  wish  to  do  so,"  says  one 
in  a  recent  work  of  fiction;  "do  all  the  evil  that  you 
possibly  can  do,  and  this  sweet  moonlight  which 
seems  to  rise  out  of  the  waves,  will  shine  no  less 
sweetly  for  you  than  for  me,  and  will  conduct  us 
both  to  our  quiet  homes."  f 

My  brethren,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  answer  all 
these  objections  from  the  supposed  silences  of  God. 

»  Enigmas  of  Life,  "W.  R.  Grey,  p.  210. 

t  Alphonse  Karr,  Le  Chemin  le  plus  court,  p.  70. 


28-  SILENCE    AND    VOICES. 

God  makes  no  ado:  He  does  not  defend  himself: 
He  suffers  men  to  blaspheme ;  His  enemies  make  a 
murmuring  but  He  refrains.  And  as  for  these, 
many  of  them  are  false  generalizations,  many  are 
distorted  facts,  some  are  acknowledged  mysteries, 
some  are  wilful  perversions  of  the  truth :  most  of 
them  may  be  reduced  to  this — that  God's  ways  are 
in  the  sea,  and  His  paths  in  the  great  waters,  and 
'His  footsteps  are  not  known.  But  further,  much 
of  this,  yea,  and  more  than  all  this,  may  alas!  to 
those  who  utter  it  be  awfully  true.  To  men,  to  na- 
tions, sometimes  almost  to  a  whole  world,  God  is 
silent :  there  is  no  God.  Their  eyes  are  blinded,  so 
that  they  cannot  see;  their  ears  closed  that  they 
cannot  hear.  Aye,  but  it  is  a  penal  silence,  a  re- 
tributive blindness.  They  who  love  the  darkness, 
have  it.     To  those  who  will  not  listen,  God  does 

not  speak:  Kadibg  ovk  kSoKifiaaav  rbv  Qebv  Ix^iv  h  emyviSjaei 
TrapidoKEV   avrovg  6  Oebg  elg  a6oKifibv  vovv.^       Like   avCngCS. 

like:  there  is  a  terrible  resemblance  between  the 
retribution  and  the  crime:  the  choice  that  will 
not  discern  is  punished  in  kind,  punished  even  here 
by  the  mind  that  cannot.  And  then  the  whole  uni- 
verse becomes  a  gulf  of  silence,  a  void  of  blackness. 

*  Rom.  i.  28. 


SILENCE    AND    VOICES.  29 

They  suffer,  and  there  is  no  God ;  they  sin,  and  there 
is  no  Eedeemer ;  they  despair,  and  there  is  no  Com- 
forter. The  Jews,  who  with  all  their  deadly  per- 
versity yet  had  many  a  flash  of  moral  insight,  knew 
this  truth  too  well.  God  had  spoken  to  them,  they 
said,  first,  face  to  face  as  to  Adam  in  Paradise ;  then 
only  by  the  Urim ;  then  only  by  dreams ;  then  only 
by  prophets ;  then  only  by  the  vague  uncertainties 
of  the  daughter  of  a  voice,  which  was  but  to  the  few 
an  intelligible  utterance,  to  the  many  but  an  articu- 
late rolling  of  the  distant  thunder-peal.  And  as 
His  voices  sounded  fainter  and  fainter,  so  did  He 
withdraw  farther  and  farther,  as  the  sins  of  men 
assumed  a  deeper  and  deeper  dye,  until  now  He  is 
but  in  the  seventh  and  inmost  heaven  infinitely  far, 
and  seemed  awhile  to  have  left  them  to  their  fate. 
Yes,  it  is  even  so  in  the  individual  heart  of  man. 
God  forgotten  is  God  ignored ;  God  ignored  is  God 
doubted  of;  God  doubted  of  is  God  denied;  God 
denied,  sooner  or  later  is  God  detested. 

Aye,  but  on  the  other  hand,  to  seek  God  is 
to  find  ;  and  to  listen  is  to  hear ;  and  to  hear  is  to 
know  and  love ;  so  that,  to  His  saints,  day  unto 
day  uttereth  speech  and  night  unto  night  sheweth 
Knowledge,  and  "God  is  a  declaratory  God,  speak- 


30  silence' AND   VOICES. 

ing  in  ten  thousand  voices,  and  the  whole  year  is  one 
Epiphany,  one  day  of  manifestation." 

1.  He  speaks  to  us,  for  instance,  in  Nature ; 
and  even  while  I  say  it,  I  can  imagine  at  once  how 
impatiently  the  cynic  will  sneer  at  what  he  will 
regard  as  a  poetic  fancy  which  has  been  worn 
threadbare  into  a  deceptive  platitude.  It  was  so 
in  the  days  of  the  Preacher,  "He  hath  made  every- 
thing beautiful  in  his  time :  also  He  hath  set  the 
world  in  their  hearts  so  that  no  man  can  find  out 
the  work  that  God  maketh."  And  so  they  cannot 
even  learn  that  one  lesson  which  to  us  comes  intui- 
tively and  at  once,  that  Nature  is  but  visible  spirit : 
that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  a  God  of  Love.  Not 
to  the  base,  not  to  the  sensual,  not  to  the  cold  cynic, 
not  to  the  insolent  scorner,  but 

"  Every  bird  that  sings, 
And  every  flower  that  stars  the  elastic  sod, 
And  every  breath  the  radiant  summer  brings, 
To  the  pure  spirit  is  a  "Word  of  God." 

And  that  you  may  rather  listen  I  will  not  state  it 
in  my  own  words,  but  will  quote  here  the  language 
of  one  who  is  dubious  about  many  Christian  truths, 
and  I  will  quote  him  to  shew  why  it  is  that,  stand- 
ing with  uncovered  head  and  awful  reverence  in  the 
mighty  Temple  of  the  Universe,  a  believer  holds 


SILENCE    AND   VOICES.  .    31 

that  God  loves  him,  and  wills  his  happiness.  "  The 
earth,"  he  says,  "is  sown  with  pleasures,  as  the 
heaven  is  studded  with  stars;  and  when  a  man 
has  not  been  happy  in  life,  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
declare  that  he  has  missed  one  of  the  aims  of  his 
existence.  The  path  of  the  years  is  paved  and 
planted  with  enjoyments.  Flowers  the  noblest  and 
the  loveliest,— colors  the  most  gorgeous  and  the 
most  delicate, — odors  the  sweetest  and  the  subtlest, 
— ^harmonies  the  most  soothing  and  the  most  stir- 
ring,— the  sunny  glories  of  the  day, — the  paje  Ely- 
sian  graces  of  the  moonlight, — 'silent  pinnacles 
of  aged  snow '  in  one  hemisphere, — the  marvels  of 
tropical  luxuriance  in  another, —  the  serenity  of 
sunsets,  the  sublimity  of  storms, —  everything  is 
bestowed  in  boundless  profusion  :  we  can  conceive 
or  desire  nothing  more  exquisite  or  perfect  than 
that  which  is  around  us  every  hour."  That  then 
is  one  revelation,  but  it  is  not  all :  for  I  add  that 
Nature,  which  is  but  the  visible  translucence  of  a 
divine  agency  working  upon  material  things,  reveals 
to  us  also  that  this  happiness  is  attainable  only  in 
the  path  of  obedience, — that  this  "not-ourselves" 
(if  any  feel  happier  by  the  use  of  sruch  pantheistic 
abstractions)  is   a  not-ourselves   which   makes   for 


32  SILENCE   AND    VOICES. 

righteousness.  ^  Winds  blow  this  lesson  to  us,  and 
waters  roll  it,  and  every  leaf  is  inscribed  with  it,  as 
those  on  which  the  Sybil  wrote  out  her  prophecies 
of  old.  "I  dare  to  say  it,"  writes  a  living  author, 
"  that  because  through  all  my  life  I  have  desired 
good,  and  not  evil ;  because  I  have  been  kind 
to  many,  have  wished  to  be  kind  to  all,  have  wilfully 
injured  none,  therefore  the  morning  light  is  yet  visi- 
ble to  me  on  yonder  hills  : "  and,  "  This  we  may 
discern  assuredly  ;  this  every  true  light  of  science, 
every  mercifully  granted  power,  every  wisely  re- 
stricted *  thought,  teach  us  more  clearly  day  by  day, 
that,  in  the  heavens  above  and  in  the  earth  beneath, 
there  is  one  continual  and  omnipotent  presence  of 
help  and  peace,  for  all  men  who  know  that  they 
live,  and  remember  that  they  die." 

And  oh,  if  any  of  you,  even  now,  in  your  early 
days,  have  lost  this  lofty  faith, — ^if,  amid  the  glories 
of  the  world  on  which  your  lot  is  cast,  you  feel  no 
"  presence  which  disturbs  you  with  the  sense  of 
elevated  thoughts,"  or  at  least  will  not  acknowledge 
that  that  presence  is  the  presence  of  our  God — boast 
not  of  this  as  though  it  were  a  sign  of  your  unbi- 
assed genius,  or  your  intellectual  superiority,  but 
rather  blush  for  it,  if  it  be,  as  it  often  is,  the  Neme- 


SILENCE    AND    VOICES.  33 

sis  of  a  faithless  disobedience, — gr,  if  it  be  not,  if 
it  have  come  to  you  in  a  holy,  and  a  humble,  and 
a  self-denying  life,  at  the  best  weep  for  it  as  the 
worst  curse  which  could  have  smitten  your  life  with 
an  irreparable  blight ;  weep  for  it,  if  God  give  you 
the  grace  of  tears,  and  pray,  aye,  even  pray  to  the 
merciful  Father  in  whom  you  have  ceased  to  have 
a  living  faith,  that  He  may  save  you  from  your- 
selves, and  save  the  life  which  He  has  given  you, 
with  all  its  divine  possibilities,  and  all  its  heavenly 
aspirations,  from  being  dwarfed  and  degraded  into 
"  a  tale 

"  Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing.^^ 

2.     And  this  God  who  thus  reveals  Himself  to 

us  in  Nature,  reveals   Himself  also  in  the  Moral 

Law.     It  needed  no  voice  from  the  rolling  darkness, 

it  needed  no  articulate  thunder  leaping  among  the 

fiery  hills,  to  persuade  mankind  that  "  God  spake 

these  words  and  said."     For  that  law  was  written 

on  their  hearts,  their  conscience  also  bearing  them 

witness.     The  Jews  believe  that  the  souls  of  all 

Jews,  for  generations  yet  unborn,  were  summoned 

from  their  antenatal  home  to  hear  the  Deliverance 

of  the  Fiery  Law ;  and,  when  a  Jew  is  charged  with 
3 


34  SILENCE   AND   VOICES. 

wrong  by  another,  he  says,  "  My  soul  too  has  been 
on  Sinai."  But  it  is  not  the  souls  of  Jews  only, 
but  of  all  mankind  who  have  been  there.  It  is 
there  that  they  learnt  that  avroSkaiov  which  is  un- 
changeable but  by  the  Will  of  God.  Nay,  not 
there,  but  long  before  the  volcanic  forces  upheaved 
from  the  bases  of  the  world  those  granite  crags, 
whenever  first  the  dead  clay  began  to  flush  and 
breathe  with  the  unconsuming  fire,  then  and  there 
were  learnt  these  eternal  distinctions  of  right  and 
wrong  : 

oh  y&p  Ti  vvv  ye  Kg-xdeg,  alV  ael  ttote 
Cv  ravra,  Kovdelg  oldev  e^  brov  '(pavrj* 

"In  highest  heaven  they  had  their  birth,  neither 
did  the  mortal  race  of  men  beget  them,  nor  shall 
oblivion  ever  put  them  to  sleep  ;  the  power  of  God 
is  mighty  in  them,  and  groweth  not  old."f  The 
great  philosopher  of  Germany  might  well  doubt  of 
all  things,  till  he  had  found  that  their  certitude 
rested  on  the  indestructible  basis  of  duty  .J  If  all 
else  were  shattered  under  our  feet,  that  would  still 
remain.  False  miracles  themselves  could  not  rob  us 
of  it.  As  in  that  grand  legend  of  the  Talmud,  the 
tree  might  at  the  words  of  the  doubter  be  trans- 
*  Soph.  Ant.  458.       f  Soph.  Oed.  Tyr.  866.  seqq.      %  Kant. 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  "      35 

planted  from  its  roots ;  the  rivulet  might  flow  back- 
ward to  its  source  ;  the  walls  and  pillars  of  the  con- 
clave might  crack  ;  yea,  a  voice  from  heaven  itself 
might  preach  another  Law,  yet  nerther  rushing  trees, 
nor  backward  flowing  waters,  nor  bending  roofs,  nor 
miracles,  nor  mysterious  voices  should  prevail  against 
our  solid  and  indestructible  conviction,  and  the 
Eternal  Himself  should  approve  our  constancy 
and  exclaim  from  the  mid  glory  of  His  Throne, 
"  My  sons  have  triumphed."* 

3.  And,  once  more,  God  speaks  to  us  in  Scrip- 
ture ;  which  means  that  He  speaks  to  us  in  that 
revelation  of  Himself  which  He  has  vouchsafed  to 
the  lives  and  hearts  of  other  men.  He  hath  sent  us 
prophets,  rising  up  early  and  sending.  Oh,  my 
brethren.  He  who  hath  lost  his  belief,  as  thousands 
by  their  own  impatience  and  to.  their  own  sorrow 
have  lost  it,  has  been  robbed  of  a  very  blessed  heri- 
tage. It  is  true  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  have 
been  wounded  in  the  house  of  their  friends;  it  is 
true  that  priests  and  theologians,  in  their  craving 
for  infallible  authorities,  have  thrown  up  the  mere 
letter  of  them  between  the  intellect  and  God, 
making  them  an   opaque  barrier  between  us   and 

*  Baba  Metzia,  1  59. 


36  SILENCE    AND    VOICES. 

Him  of  whom  they  were  meant  to  be  the  crystal 
mirror.  It  is  true  that  men,  who  were  their  pro- 
fessed defenders,  have  deprived  them  of  their  glory 
and  their  Universality,  reading  them  under  the 
vail  of  bigoted  misconception,  or  through  the  lurid 
smoke  of  sectarian  hate,  making  the  Gospel  of  Life 
and  Love  and  Liberty  httle  better  than  "the  re- 
membrancer of  damnation,  and  the  messenger  of 
Hell."  And  yet  there,  in  all  its  human  tenderness, 
in  all  its  divine  wisdom,  like  the  lamp  unquenched 
by  the  vapors  of  the  charnel-house,  for  all  who 
will  use  it  rightly,  that  Holy  and  Blessed  Book  is 
laid  up  on  the  inviolable  altar  of  truth  and  honesty, 
the  eternal  protest  against  the  very  sins  which  are 
committed  in  its  name.  Kead  it  not  with  slavish 
superstition,  not  with  a  blind  and  literal  Fetish 
worship,  but  in  loving  humility,  in  intelligent  faith ; 
and  you,  as  myriads  of  your  fathers  have  done, 
will  find  it,  if  not  the  only,  yet  assuredly  the  best, 
comfort  in  sorrow,  the  best  warning  in  danger,  the 
best  hope  in  death :  when  all  else  is  bitter,  it  still 
shall  be  sweeter  than  honey  and  the  honey-comb, 
and  when  all  else  is  dross,  it  shall  be  as  ten  times 
refined  gold. 

4    For  lastly,  let  us  never  forget  that  it  is  there 


SILENCE   AND   VOICES.  37 

chiefly — in  the  history  that  it  records,  in  the  sacra- 
ments which  it  perpetuates, — that  we  hear  most 
clearly  of  all  the  Voice  of  God  speaking  to  us  by  the 
divine  lips  of  the  Son  of  Man.  It  was  thus,  my 
brethren,  that  God  revealed  Himself,  and  if  we  re- 
ject that  revelation,  can  we  hope  for  any  other  ?  Is 
not  this  the  very  lesson  of  the  New  Testament : — • 
"  God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners 
spake  in  times  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets, 
hath,  in  these  last  days,  spoken  unto  us  by  His 
Son  ? "  And  in  the  light  of  that  truth,  when  we 
look  at  the  ever- widening  skepticism  of  this  genera- 
tion, do  not  the  words  of  Christ,  as  recorded  by  the 
beloved  Apostle,  acquire  a  fresh  and  terrible  sig- 
nificance : — "  Ye  have  neither  heard  His  voice  at  any 
time,  nor  seen  His  shape  ;  and  ye  have  not  His  word 
abiding  in  you :  for,  whom  He  hath  sent.  Him  ye 
believe  not  ?  "  Oh !  let  us  hear  that  voice  of  the  Son 
of  God,  for  if  we  hear  it  not,  we  may  hear  no  other ; 
and  they  who  hear  it  live.  And,  when  we  pour  out 
the  impassioned  prayer  of  Luther,  "  Oh,  my  God, 
punish  far  rather  with  pestilence,  with  all  the  terri- 
ble sicknesses  on  earth,  with  war,  with  anything 
rather  than  that  Thou  be  silent  to  us,"  let  us  re- 
member that  such  silence  is  never  that  God  doth  not 


38  SILENCE   AND   VOICES. 

speak,  but  that  we  will  not  hear ;  that  whether  we 
hear  or  not,  and  the  degree  in  which  we  hear,  de- 
pends upon  ourselves  ;  that  he  who  is  of  God  hear- 
eth  the  words  of  God,  and  that,  if  we  hear  them 
not,  it  is  because  we  are  not  of  God.  "  The  secret  of 
the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him,  and  He  shall 
shew  them  His  covenant;"  but  "the  face  of  the 
Lord  is  against  them  that  do  evil,  to  root  out 
the  remembrance  of  them  from  the  earth." 


II. 

THE  VOICE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

"  Se  non  che  conseionzia  m'  assicura, 
La  buona  compiignia  che  1'  uom  francheggia 
Sotto  r  osbergo  del  sentirsi  pura." 

Dante,  Inf.  xxvin.  115. 


Their  conscience  also  bearing  witness. — ^RoM.  ii.  15.* 


I  SPOKE  in  my  last  Sermon,  my  brethren,  of  the 
Silence  and  the  Voices  of  God;  I  endeavored  to 
shew  that  He  does  indeed  speak  to  us,  and  speak  to 
us  continually,  but  that  we  may  lose  all  sense  of  His 
utterance,  and  be  wholly  uninfluenced  by  it,  as  he 
who  lives  by  the  roar  of  a  cataract  is  often  unconscious 
of  its  sound :  and  then  I  spoke  of  His  voice  in 
Nature,  His  voice  in  Scripture,  His  voice  in  the 
Moral  Law — above  all,  the  voice  wherewith  God 
speaks  to  us  by  the  lips  of  the  Son  of  Man.  To-day 
I  would  speak  of  another  of  His  voices,  of  one 
which  illustrates  most  clearly  the  methods  whereby 
He  deals  with  us,  of  that  voice  which  is  at  once  the 
most  personal,  the  most  peremptory,  the  most  pene- 
trating of  all, — the  voice  of  Conscience. 

♦  Preached  before  the  University  of  Cambridge,  May  4,  1873. 

(39) 


OF  THSI 


40  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

And  here  I  would  say  on  the  threshold  that  it  is 
no  part  of  my  present  duty  to  enter  into  the  battle- 
field of  modern  materialism.  If  any  rejoice  to  fling 
aside  the  old  and  inspiring  conviction — that  Man, 
"  so  noble  in  reason,  so  infinite  in  faculty,  in  form 
and  moving  so  express  and  admirable,  in  action  so  like 
an  angel,  in  apprehension  so  like  a  god,''  originated 
because  God  made  him  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth 
and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life — 
and  to  take  in  exchange  for  it  the  humiliating  and 
wholly  undemonstrable  hypothesis  that  he  came 
into  being  by  some  accident  of  development,  I  know 
not  how,  from  some  film  of  protoplasm,  I  know  not 
where — still  Man  is,  and  the  facts  of  his  inner  being 
remain  unchanged.  Such  beliefs,  if  they  can  be 
called  beliefs,  have  indeed  spread  with  a  rapidity  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  cogency  of  the  arguments  by 
which  they  are  supposed  to  have  been  established. 
The  great  thinker  who  originated  the  theory,  and 
whose  name  it  is  impossible  to  mention  without 
admiration  and  respect,  has  distinctly  declared  him- 
self against  an  atheistic  materialism ;  and  it  has 
been  left  for  his  violent  and  reckless  followers  to 
maintain,  to  the  outrage  of  all  sense  and  of  all  relig- 
ion,  that    Man   sprang  from  a   single    primordial 


THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  41 

moneres  which  was  self-generated  and  self-evolved, 
and  that  therefore  the  belief  in  a  Creator  is  unscien- 
tific and  exploded.  Enough  of  such :  but  even  in 
England  it  has  been  thought  a  necessary  sequel  of 
this  belief  in  Evolution  to  argue  that  Man,  thus 
developed,  proceeded  to  develop  a  moral  sense  out 
of  social  instincts  fortified  by  hereditary  trans- 
mission, and  it  is  probable  that  very  many  even 
of  my  younger  hearers  have  read  that  celebrated 
book  on  the  Descent  of  Man,  which  professes — to 
quote  the  author's  own  words — to  "approach  the 
conscience  exclusively  from  the  side  of  natural  his- 
tory." 

Well,  if  any  man  be  content  so  to  think,  let  him 
so  think,  and  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind. 
The  day  has  not  yet  arrived  when  it  must  be  neces- 
sary for  a  Christian  minister  to  preface  his  simplest 
teaching  by  a  fresh  proof  of  those  grand  truths  which 
for  well-nigh  two  millenniums  have  been  the  common 
heritage  of  advanced  humanity.  But  since  it  is 
common  in  these  times  to  try  and  represent  the 
clergy  as  wilfully  shutting  their  eyes  to  all  recent 
investigation,  I  only  allude  to  these  forms  of  scien- 
tific assertion  and  negation,  to  shew  that  what 
is  called  the  silence  of  ignorance  may  sometimes  be 


42  THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE. 

the  silence  of  repudiation,  sometimes  even  the  reti- 
cence of  scorn. 

In  point  of  fact,  however,  no  such  theories  will 
affect  my  main  ohject.  It  is  enough  for  me  that 
even  the  most  advanced  materialist  admits  that 
whether,  "  approached  exclusively  from  the  side  of 
natural  history/'  or  not,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
Conscience  and  that  its  voice  is  heard  in  the  soul  of 
man ;  and  I  shall  appeal  to-day  to  nothing  abstruser 
than  these  admitted  facts  of  common  experience. 

Nor,  again,  is  it  my  purpose  to  enter  on  any  of 
the  subtler  questions  of  Moral  Philosophy,  or  to 
reargue  the  ten-times-argued  question  whether  or  no 
Morality  mean  anything  more  than  a  system  founded 
on  social  utility.  In  the  Christian  Church  at  least 
of  a  Christian  University,  it  may,  I  suppose,  even  in 
this  19th  century  of  illumination,  have  some  weight 
that  the  word  "usefulness  does  not  once  occur  in  the 
New  Testament,"  nor  was  "  Measure  all  things  by  a 
nice  calculation  of  advantages,"  the  language  of  Sinai, 
nor  did  our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ  ever  place 
self-interest,  however  enlightened,  on  the  throne  of 
conscience,  when  He  taught  us  the  will  of  His  Father 
in  Heaven.  Nor  will  any  of  the  ordinary  defini- 
tions of  conscience  here    serve   me.       To   call  it 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  43 

"reflex  approbation,  or  disapprobation," — to  de- 
scribe it  as  "an  imitation  within  ourselves  of  the 
government  without  us," — to  define  it  as  "man, 
present  to  himself  in  his  ethical  conduct,  and  the 
object  of  his  own  approval  or  disapproval,"— may 
admirably  illustrate  the  truth  that  when  the  wisest 
of  the  ancients  defined  virtue  to  be  "  a  following  of 
Nature,"  they  were  well  aware  that  Man  is  a  being 
of  a  mixt  world,  related  to  two  worlds,  the  heav- 
enly and  the  earthly,*  and  that  though  there  be 
within  us  higher  and  lower  principles  of  action,  our 
nature  is  in  reality  represented  by  the  higher  and 
spiritual,  not  by  the  lower  or  animal,  so  that  strong 
passions  mean  nothing  more  than  weak  reason. 
But  alas!  how  little  do  such  considerations  touch 
the  heart !  how  fully  may  they  be  admitted  by 
the  intellect,  while  they  are  ignored  by  the  life  ! 
how  few  of  the  philosophers  who  held  them  were 
unaware  of  their  practical  impotence ;  or,  as  they 
themselves  so  sadly  and  so  frankly  confessed,  were 
enabled,  by  the  intellectual  strength  of  these  con- 
victions, to  approach,  even  distantly,  to  the  glori- 
ous  ideal  of  a  holy  or  a  noble  life.     No,  this  pale 

*  Anastas.    Sinait.    De  Tiominis  creatione  (quoted  by  Harless, 
Christian  Mhics,  p.  49). 


44  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

moonliglit  of  an  utilitarian  or  rational  morality  is 
not  sufficient  to  guide  the  stumbling  footsteps  of 
man  up  the  flinty  or  uphillward  road :  no  misty 
meteors  of  a  calculating  philosophy,  no  feeble  glim- 
merings of  a  developed  instinct,  no  imaginary  light 
of  a  fictitious  faculty,  will  guide  him  there :  nothing 
will  save  him  from  the  precipices  and  pitfalls  there, 
but  that  spirit  of  man  which  is  the  Lamp  of  God 
within  him ;  nothing  less  than  the  full  sunlight  of 
religion,  yea,  the  Sun  of  Eighteousness  risen  on  the 
dark  soul  with  healing  in  His  wings. 

An  eminent  and  good  man  who  lived  to  do 
much  courageous  work  in  the  world,  which  to  this 
day  is  bearing  good  fruit  on  the  Western  Continent, 
tells  us  a  reminiscence  of  his  childhood  which  will 
exactly  illustrate  my  point  of  view.  "  When  I  was 
a  little  boy,"  he  says,  "in  my  fourth  year,  one  fine 
day  in  spring  my  father  led  me  by  the  hand  to  a 
distant  part  of  the  farm,  but  soon  sent  me  home 
alone.  On  the  way  I  had  to  pass  a  little  pond,  then 
spreading  its  waters  wide ;  a  rhodora  in  full  bloom, 
a  rare  flower  which  grew  only  in  that  locality,  at- 
tracted my  attention,  and  drew  me  to  the  spot.  I 
saw  a  little  tortoise  sunning  himself  in  the  shallow 
water  at  the  roots  of  the  flaming  shrub.     I  lifted 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  45 

the  stick  I  had  in  my  hand,  to  strike  the  harmless 
reptile.;  for  though  I  had  never  killed  any  creature, 
yet  I  had  seen  other  boys  do  so,  and  I  felt  a  disposi- 
tion to  follow  their  wicked  examples.  But  all  at 
once  something  checked  my  little  arm,  and  a  voice 
within  me  said  clear  and  loud  *  It  is  wrong ! '  I 
held  my  uplifted  stick  in  wonder  at  the  new  emo- 
tion, the  consciousness  of  an  involuntary  but  inward 
check  upon  my  actions,  till  the  tortoise  and  the 
rhodora  both  vanished  from  my  sight.  I  hastened 
home,  and  told  the  tale  to  my  mother,  and  asked 
what  it  was  that  told  me  '  it  was  wrong.'  She 
wiped  a  tear  from  her  eye,  and  taking  me  in  her 
arms  said,  '  Some  men  call  it  conscience,  but  I  pre- 
fer to  call  it  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man. 
If  you  listen  and  obey  it,  then  it  will  speak  clearer 
and  clearer,  and  always  guide  you  right ;  but  if  you 
turn  a  deaf  ear  or  disobey,  then  it  will  fade  out, 
little  by  little,  and  leave  you  in  the  dark  and  with- 
out a  guide.  Your  life  depends  on  heeding  that 
little  voice.'  She  went  her  way,''  he  continues, 
"careful  and  troubled  about  many  things,  and 
doubtless  pondered  them  in  her  motherly  heart: 
while  I  went  off  to  wonder  and  think  it  over  in  my 
poor  childish  way;  but  I  am  sure  no  event  in  my 


46  THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

life  has  made  so  deep  and  lasting  an  impression  on 
me."  Wise  mother !  Happy  son !  It  is  from,  such 
mothers  that  heroes  spring;  it  is  thus  that  are 
trained  the  saints  of  God.  When  the  greatest  of 
modern  philosophers  *  exclaims,  "  0  Duty,  0  won- 
drous power,  that  workest  neither  by  insinuation, 
flattery,  or  threat,  but  merely  by  holding  up  the 
naked  law  in  the  soul,  extortest  for  thyself  reverence 
if  not  always  obedience, —  thou  before  whom  all 
appetites  are  dumb  however  secretly  they  rebel, 
whence  is  thine  origin?" — to  such  a  question  the 
Christian  at  least  will  answer  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  and  with  all  his  heart,  "  Thine  origin  is 
God."  The  power  of  the  conscience  is  simply  para- 
lyzed apart  from  the  belief  in  God.  If  it  be  not,  as 
St.  Bernard  calls  it  the  candor  lucis  aeternae  et 
speculum  Dei  majestatis, — if  it  be  not  man's  con- 
sciousness of  his  relation  to  a  Higher  Being,  whose 
Law  conditions  the  tendencies  of  his  will, — it  is 
nothing.  Apart  from  God  that  moral  law  loses  its 
meaning.  It  may  be  true,  that  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, written  on  our  hearts,  obeyed  in  our  lives, 
are  sufficient  to  drive  from  us  every  assault  of  evil, 
but  then  they  must  he  commandments ;  they  must 

*  Kant 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  47 

not  be  a  nice  balance  of  advantages,  but  the  living 
utterance  of  a  Father  and  a  God. 

"  Hear  these  three  things,"  said  a  Jewish  Kabbi, 
"  and  thou  shalt  eschew  transgression ;  remember 
what  is  above  thee,  the  All-seeing  Eye,  and  the  All- 
hearing  Ear,  and  that  all  thy  actions  are  written  in 
a  book."  *  But,  separated  from  the  thought  of 
God,  the  conscience  becomes  an  idle  enigma.  If  it 
do  not  spring  from  Him,  if  it  may  not  appeal  to 
Him,  if  it  cannot  testify  of  Him,  it  has  nothing  to 
say  and  nothing  to  command.  But  herein  lies  its 
true  supremacy,  that  it  is  the  voice  of  that  which 
even  the  heathen  called  "  the  God  within  us."  It 
is  in  this  sense  that  St.  Paul  used  conscience ;  it  is 
in  this  sense  alone  that  I  can  understand  or  speak 
of  it. 

2.  We  have  seen  then  already  that  the  first 
function  of  the  conscience  is  to  warn.  And  herein 
is  much  of  its  mystery,  for  it  seems  to  be  ourselves, 
yet  not  ourselves ;  inseparable  from  us,  yet  no  part 
of  us;  speaking  to  us  with  gentle  and  divine  ap- 
proval, or  with  terrible  and  imperious  authority, 
yet  with  no  inherent  power  to  determine  our  actions. 
Wholly  beyond  our  .mastery,  it  stands  towards 
*  Firke  Aboth,  ii  L 


48  THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

•moral  evil  in  the  same  relation  that  pain  holds 
towards  disease.  When  anything  is  wrong  with 
our  bodies,  when  any  function  is  disturbed,  when 
any  mischief  is  latent,  pain  comes,  whether  we  will 
or  no,  to  warn  us  beneficently  of  our  danger.  Nor 
is  it  otherwise  with  the  soul.  All  evil  springs  from 
evil  thoughts,  "out  of  the  heart  proceed  evil 
thoughts," — evil  thoughts,  and  then  all  the  long 
black  catalogue  of  sins  you  know.  And  since  an 
evil  thought  is,  to  the  soul,  a  disordered  function, 
an  undeveloped  disease,  a  latent  leprosy, — when  it 
is  lurking  there,  the  pang  of  an  alarmed  conscience 
gives  us  timely  warning.  Vain  is  it  to  plead  that 
this  is  but  a  thought;  "Guard  well,"  it  says,  "thy 
thoughts :  for  thoughts  are  heard  in  heaven."  It 
was  a  recognized  principle  of  Koman  law  that 
cogitationis  poenam  nemo  patitur ;  but  this  is  not 
the  principle  of  that  sole  legislation  which  had  an 
origin  immediately  divine.  In  every  other  code 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen  or  known,  you  will  find 
no  prohibition  of  evil  thoughts,  but  you  will  find 
that  prohibition,  alike  in  the  first  and  in  the  last  of 
those  Ten  Commandments  which  are  the  code  of 
Him,  who  alone  searcheth  and  knoweth  the  heart 
of  man.     Yea,  in  the  code  of  heaven,  a  bad  thought 


THE   VOICE   OF    CONSCIENCE.  49 

indulged  is  a  bad  deed  committed.  Oh  if  we  listen 
to  this  warning  from  the  first,  if  we  thus  ohstamus 
prmctpiis,  how  strong,  how  noble,  how  impregnable 
to  the  assaults  of  evil,  may  the  soul  become !  For 
there  are  but  two  ways  by  which  men  grievously 
fall,  the  one  is  by  some  sudden  access  of  tempta- 
tion, the  other  by  the  subtle  corrosion  of  some 
besetting  sin.  But  into  the  latter,  if  we  be  true  to 
that  voice  within  us,  we  cannot  fall,  because  inno- 
cence is  nature's  wisdom,  and  conscience  faithfully 
cherished  makes  it  more  terrible,  more  difficult  to 
yield  than  to  resist :  and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  evil, 
unable  thus  to  surprise  us  by  the  noiseless  and  sinu- 
ous gliding  of  the  serpent,  bounds  suddenly  upon  us 
with  a  wild  beast's  roar  and  leap,  even  then  it  will 
not  master  us,  because  then  our  habits  and  our 
impulses,  being  pure  and  true,  shield  themselves 
instantly  under  the  strong  breastplate  of  righteous- 
ness, and  the  reiterated  choice  of  what  was  good  has 
prepared  the  whole  instinct  of  our  nature,  the  whole 
bias  of  our  character,  for  resistance  to  the  sudden 
sin. 

Whatever  be  the   shape  that  the  vile  allure- 
ment  takes,  the   spirit   within   us   thrills   its  glad 
response   to   the  noble   utterance   of  the  stainless 
4 


50  THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE. 

Hebrew  boy,  "  How  can  I  do  this  great  wickedness, 
and  sin  against  God  ?  " 

Yes,  my  brethren,  this  is  the  state  at  which  we 
all  should  aim : 

"  This  is  the  happy  -warrior, — this  is  he 
Whom,  every  man  at  arms  should  wish  to  he." 

For  when  we  have  attained  this  state,  or  are 
attaining  to  •  it,  then  we  are  happy.  Then  the 
eye  being  single,  the  whole  body  is  full  of  light. 
We  reverence  ourselves ;  films  fall  away  from  our 
eyes;  we  know  that  righteousness  tendeth  to  life; 
we  cherish  in  our  consciences  the  eternal  protest 
against  everything  that  can  degrade  and  ruin  us, 
the  eternal  witness  that  everything  sweetest  and 
noblest  is  within  our  reach.  It  is  one  of  the 
very  finest  and  deepest  sayings  of  the  great  sage 
of  China  that  "  Heaven  means  Principle."  With 
him,  with  all  good  men  who  have  ever  lived, 
this  was  the  solid  result  and  outcome  of  expe- 
rience. Other  sources  of  happiness  are  but  as 
transient  gleams  of  sunlight,  but  this  is  life  eternal ; 
other  blessings  fade  as  the  flowers  fade,  but 
this  is  an  everlasting  foundation.  How  full  is 
all  Scripture  of  this  one  lesson!  With  what  a 
glow  of  belief,   with  what   a  force   of  conviction, 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  61 

do  those  divine  utterances  crowd  upon  us, 
*' Blessed  is  every  one  that  feareth  the  Lord: 
oh  well  is  he,  and  happy  shall  he  be."  "  The 
Lord  ordereth  a  good  man's  going,  and  maketh 
his  way  acceptable  to  himself."  "  Thou  wilt  shew 
me  the  path  of  life;  in  Thy  presence  is  the  ful- 
ness of  joy ;  at  Thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures 
for  evermore."  ,^ 

3.  And  why,  my  brethren,  do  we  not  all 
live  to  inherit  this  blessedness  of  which  we  are 
all  the  rightful  heirs  ?  Because,  alas !  we  have 
not  all,  and  not  always,  listened  to  that  voice 
of  conscience,  and  not  to  listen  to  it  is  misery; 
for  when  it  ceases  to  warn,  it  begins  to  accuse. 
The  angel  who  went  forth  so  gently  and  tenderly 
at  first,  to  stop  us  on  the  path  of  ruin  because 
our  way  was  perverse,  assumes  the  drawn  sword 
and  gleaming  robe  of  the  Avenger.  And  if,  in 
spite  of  this,  we  drive  with  furious  passion  over 
the  opposing  power,  as  the  wicked  queen  of 
legend,  urging  her  chariot  over  the  murdered 
Dody  of  her  sire,  agitated  by  all  the  furies, 
drove  through  the  city  with  her  chariot-wheels 
all  dyed  in  blood, — then,  shamed  for  a  time,  and 
defeated,   and   defied,   conscience,   when   it   speaks 


52  THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE. 

again,  speaks  in  an  altered  tone;  no  longer  in 
tones  of  calm  and  love,  but  of  sadness  and  re- 
proach, of  scorn  and  menace,  of  wrath  and  fear 
And  then  begins  that  misery  of  a  concordia  dis- 
cors,  that  displicentia  sui,^  that  jangled  dissonance 
in  what  should  be  the  sweet  music  of  men's 
lives.  "  The  good  that  I  would  I  do  not,  but 
,the  evil  that  I  would  not  that  I  do."  We 
know  the  story  of  how  the  great  king  before 
whom  the  preacher  had  been  contrasting  the 
misery  of  these  two  lives  in  one,  exclaimed,  "/ 
know  those  two  men. "  And  indeed  this  loss  of 
all  unity  in  our  being,  this  miserable  dishar- 
mony in  life,  this  changing  of  an  inseparable 
companion  from  a  loving  friend  into  a  bitter 
enemy,  this  disintegration  and  dissolution  of  an 
existence  dragged  on  in  a  weakness  that  still 
yields  while  the  moral  sense  would  still  resist, 
— ^the  fact  that  a  man  should  know  what  he  is, 
and  scorn  what  he  is,  and  yet  be  what  he  is, 
— the  sense  of  an  ideal  missed,  of  an  opportu- 
nity wasted,  of  all  life  shrivelled  into  a  miserable 
"if"  and  an  empty  "might  have  been;" — this 
is  the  very  essence  of  human  misery.  It  is  man 
*  Sen.  De  Tranq.  An.  ii. 


THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  53 

without  God,  and  therefore  man  without  joy,  or 
peace,  or  hope.  All  Scripture  is  full  of  it.  The 
sinner  hides  himself  in  vain  amid  the  garden 
trees,  and  the  sounding  footstep  follows  him, 
and  the  awful  voice  asks,  "  Where  art  thou  .^ " 
He  has  murdered  some  mortal  body,  or  worse 
perhaps,  some  immortal  soul,  and  it  asks,  "Where 
is  Abel  thy  brother.?"  He  has  indulged  in  some 
secret  sneer,  or  unuttered  blasphemy,  and  setting 
aside  his  vain  denials,  it  sternly  says,  "  Nay,  but 
thou  didst  laugh."  He  has  in  his  selfish  greed 
made  excuses  for  disobeying  some  positive  com- 
mand, and  it  asks,  "  What  meaneth  this  bleat- 
ing of  sheep  in  mine  ears  ? "  He  has  stolen 
what  is  not  his  own,  and  it  convicts  him  with 
the  accusation,  "  Tell  me  now  what  thou  hast 
done."  He  has  committed  deadly  and  undis- 
covered crimes,  and  it  cries  with  uplifted  voice 
and  threatening  finger,  "Thou  art  the  man." 
He  has  been  profane  and  blasphemous,  and  while 
his  knees  knock  together,  and  his  cheeks  grow 
pale,  in  letters  of  flame  it  writes,  "  Mene,  Mene, 
Tekel "  upon  his  walls.  Why  proceed  ?  is  not 
all  history,  is  not  all  experience,  full  of  these 
haunted  men,   men  pursued  by  guilt  unrepented 


54  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

of,  men  for  whom  the  whole  earth  is  of  glass; 
men  who  thought  that  when  the  crime  was  over 
they  had  done  with  it,  but  who  have  found 
that  it  has  not  done  with  them;  men  who  fan- 
cied that  they  had  but  written  their  sins  on 
sand,  and  find  them  engraved  on  their  own  sad 
memory  as  with  a  pen  of  iron  on  tablets  of 
brass,  and  perpetuated  in  the  eternal  records 
"like  a  crack  in  the  living  rock"  for  ever?  No 
power,  no  rank  can  screen  them.  On  the  very 
judgment-seat  they  are  judged.  Pilate  may  wash 
his  guilty  hands,  but  what  river  can  wash  his  guilty 
heart  ?  Felix  sits  on  his  pompous  tribunal,  with 
the  scowling  lictors  on  either  side,  but  as  Paul 
reasons  of  temperance  and  judgment,  Felix  trembles. 
Henry  of  Germany  cowers  before  the  aged  Pontiff, 
who  bids  him  appeal  to  God's  judgment  to  clear  him 
of  his  crimes.  Sigismund  is  on  his  royal  seat  before 
all  the  princes  and  prelates  of  his  empire,  but  when 
the  humble  priest  whom  he  is  about  to  condemn  to 
the  stake  reminds  him  of  his  broken  oath,  there,  in 
the  presence  of  them  all,  he  cannot  repress  the 
deep  blush  which  dyes  his  cheek  with  guilty  crim- 
son. There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the 
wicked.     How  can  it  be  peace,  . 


THE    VOICE    OP    CONSCIENCE.  55 

"  Ncxjte  dieque  suum  gestare  in  pectore  testem  ?  **  * 

How  can  it  be  peace, 

"  to  ever  bear  about 
A  silent  court  of  justice  in  himself, 
Himself  the  judge  and  jury,  and  himself 
The  prisoner  at  the  bar  ever  condemned, — 
And  that  drags  down  his  life  ?  "  f 

No !  conscience  is  her  own  avenger.  "  To  groan 
too  late  over  a  lost  life,"  J  oh  what  a  misery  is 
there !  From  every  age,  from  every  literature,  from 
every  history,  one  might  establish  it.  If  the  tes- 
timony of  Scripture  be  suspected  or  despised ;  if 
those  magnificent  chapters  in  the  Wisdom  of  Sol- 
omon be  thought  too  akin  to  Scripture  to  be  ac- 
cepted, shall  I  summon  the  unsuspected,  the  natural 
testimony  of  Pagan  witnesses  ?  Shall  it .  be  the , 
great  poet-philosopher,  Lucretius  .?  §  "  The  scourge, 
the  executioner,  the  dungeon,  the  pitchy  tunic, — 
even  though  these  be  absent,  yet  the  guilty  mind 
with  anticipating  terror  applies  the  goad,  and 
scorches  with  its  blows."  Shall  it  be  the  great 
epic  poet  who  places  the  Ultrices  Curae  in  closest 
proximity  to  the  mala  mentis  gaudia  ?  Shall  it 
be  the  youthful  satirist,  who  asks,  "  Is  the  moan- 
ing of  him  who  is  tortured  in  the  Bull  of  Phalaris ; 

*  Juv.  Sat.  xiii.  198.  f  Tennyson,  Sea  Dreams. 

.  t  Lucr.  iii.  1024  §  Ibid. 


56  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

is  the  sword  that  glitters  a-tremble  over  his  flushed 
neck  from  the  gilded  fretwork,  half  so  terrible,  as 

*Imus, 
Imus  praecipites  quam  si  sibi  dicat,  et  intus 
PaUeat  infeUx  ? ' "  * 

Or  once  more,  shall  it  be  his  fellow-satirist,  who 
exclaims,  "Why  shouldst  thou  think  that  they 
have  escaped,  whom  the  inward  consciousness  of 
guilt  agitates  with  amazement  and  scourges  with 
the  soundless  lash,  occuUum  quatiente  animo 
tortore  flagellum  ?  "  f 

4.  But  bad  as  this  is,  there  is  something 
worse  than  the  warning,  worse  than  the  accusing, 
worse  than  the  gnawing, — it  is  the  dead  conscience. 
"It  is  wonderful  to  observe,"  says  a  great  bishop 
of  our  church,  "what  a  great  inundation  of 
mischief  will  in  a  very  short  time  overflow  all 
the  banks  of  reason  and  religion.  Vice  first 
is  pleasing,  then  it  groweth  easy,  then  fre- 
quent, then  habitual,  then  confirmed:  then  the 
man  is  impenitent,  then  he  is  obstinate;  then  he 
resolves  never  to  repent,  and  then"  —  I  pause 
at  language  which  the  17th  century  was  less 
afraid  than  the  19th  is  to  use — then  comes  what 
comes    hereafter.      Yes    the    timid    becomes   first 

*  Pers.  8ai.  iii.  39.  f  J^v.  Sat.  xiii.  195. 


THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  57 

the  wilful,  then  the  willing  sin :  novepdc,  aTCka 
TovTo  niv  Kot  jSoilETac.^*  For  what  was  first  tampered 
with,  then  yielded  to,  then  persisted  in,  is  next  jus- 
tified; and  last,  oh  horrible,  boasted  of:  aye  in 
whole  philosophies,  in  whole  literatures,  shame- 
lessly glorified.  And  this  is  the  stage  worse 
than  the  gnawing,  for  this  is  the  murdered  con- 
science. When  there  is  any  hope  for  a  wound 
it  continues  to  give  pain:  but  when  it  has  mor- 
tified the  pain  ceases.  Even  so  ceases  the  throb 
of  a  conscience  which  is  sleeping,  which  is  defiled, 
which  is  dead,  which,  in  the  powerful  image  of 
St.  Paul,  is  "seared  with  a  hot  iron."  For 
either  its  voice  grows  fainter  and  fainter,  as  the 
voice  of  temptation  grows  louder  and  louder,  or 
becoming  hateful  by  its  reiterated  condemnations, 
it  so  inflames  the  sinner's  anger,  that  he  de- 
liberately silences,  chokes,  murders  it.  And  then 
he  is  let  alone.  His  conscience  will  cease  to 
torment  him.  And  then  he  may  go  on  undis- 
turbed for  years  and  years,  filling  to  the  brim 
the  cup  of  his  iniquity :  for  years  and  years  he 
may  be    dishonest,   a   drunkard,   an    adulterer,   a 

*  Aristoph.  Eq.  1281. 


58  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

blasphemer :  and  never  once  hear  again  the  voice 
that  he  has  stifled.  Nay  more,  he  may,  such  is 
the  mystery  of  iniquity,  and  because  it  is  God's 
decree  that  "the  more  we  know  of  sin,  the  less 
shall  we  feel  its  real  nature,"  *  he  may  actually 
substitute  for  conscience  another  voice ;  a  voice 
not  true  but  lying,  not  faithful  but  traitorous ; 
a  voice  which,  answering  him  according  to  his 
idols,  dissimulates  the  taunting  mockery  with 
which  it  cries,  "  Go  up  to  Eamoth  Gilead  and 
prosper;"  a  voice  that  palliates,  that  excuses, 
that  encourages,  that  whispers  continually,  "  Peace, 
peace,"  when  there  is  no  peace.  And  this  is 
the  naost  perilous  of  all.  It  comes  to  all  in 
proportion  to  their  guiltiness,  in  proportion  to 
their  insincerity.  I  have  known  it  alas,  come 
even  in  early  years.  And  it  is  wellnigh  be- 
yond man's  cure.  Woe  to  the  traveller  who 
turns  .  his    back    upon    the    guiding    star,    that 

*  This  is  a  profound  remark  of  Mr.  J.  Martineau.  This  con- 
iition  of  the  soul  is  called  cnToViduaig  by  Epictetus,  i.  e.  "  moral 
petrifaction." 

It  is  the  aSSKtfiog  vovg  (Kom.  i.  28),  the  Tzupucig  r^g  KapSlag,  hest 
described  by  St.  Paul  in  Eph.  iv.  17-19.  See  Harless,  Christian 
Ethics,  E.  Tr.  p.  92. 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  59 

he  may  plunge  after  the  delusive  meteor  which 
flickers  hither  and  thither  over  the  marsh  of 
death.  Woe  to  the  ship  whose  pilot,  disregard- 
ing the  friendly  beacon,  chooses  rather  to  steer 
by  the  wrecker's  deadly  fire.  And  woe,  woe, 
double  woe  to  that  unhappy  soul,  which  wilfully 
accepts  the  suggestions  of  sin  and  Satan,  as 
though  they  were  the  pure,  the  unerring,  the 
awful  voice  of  God !  * 

5.  For  in  this  state,  with  a  dead  conscience, 
the  man  himself  may  die,  and  perhaps  often 
does  die,  his  soul  as  stupefied  as  the  senses  of 
the  traveller  who  lies  down  to  sleep  his  last 
sleep  on  the  fields  of  snow.  But  sometimes  the 
task  of  the  conscience  is  even  yet  not  over,  and 
even  the  murdered  starts  up  once  more  as  the 
terrified,  the  awakened  conscience.  Yes,  some- 
times for  a  man's  punishment  only,  but  some- 
times also  by  Grod's  infinite  mercy,  that  a  man 
may  be  saved  by  that  fiery  agony,  the  dead 
conscience  leaps  up  into  angry  and  terrible  life 
once   more,   casts   off    the   cerements   which   years 


*  ao<l>ia    kiriyeiog,  ifwxtn^,  iaifiovi66?jC'   Jam.    iii.  15.  aapKLKij.  2 
Cor.  i.  12. 


60  THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

of  sin  have  bound  around  it,  and  starts,  as  tlie 
ghost  of  some  murdered  victim  might  start  from 
the  tomb,  to  upbraid  its  murderer.*  Some  ter- 
rific calamity,  some  overwhehning  bereavement, 
loss,  failure;  some  arrow  of  God  winged  with 
conviction ;  some  lightning  flash,  shattering  to 
pieces  the  smooth  path  of  life,  cleaving  its  way 
irresistibly  into  the  stony  heart,  hurling  to  the 
ground  with  a  great  crash  the  idols  within  it; 
worst  of  all,  some  sin  becoming  the  natural  pun- 
ishment, the  inalienable  possession  of  sin,  some 
"tempting  opportunity"  meeting  the  "susceptible 
disposition,"  and  leading  to  some  great  crime 
which,  though  it  be  but  the  legitimate  issue  of  a 
long  train  of  lesser  sins,  yet  startles  a  man  into 
a  recognition  of  his  own  awful  wickedness,  and 
filling  the  dark  chambers  of  the  heart  with  a 
glare  of  unnatural  illumination,  reveals  the  moral 
law  once  more  in  all  its  insupportable  majesty, 
— something  of  this  kind  wakens  even  the  dead 
conscience  as  with  the  trump  of  the  Archangel 
and  the  Yoice  of  God.     "  Perfecto  demum   scelere, 

*  "  It  may  be  obscured,"  says  TertuUian,  "  because  it  is  not 
God :  extiaguished  it  cannot  be,  because  it  is  from  God."  {Be 
Anim.  xlL) 


THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  61 

magnitudo  ejus  intellecta  est.''  *  By  that  great 
visitation  conscience  is  awakened.  She  lights  the 
torch  of  memory  at  that  lurid  glare,  and  waves  it 
round  the  painted  imagery  of  the  desecrated  soul 
She  is  no  longer  the  gentle  friend,  the  soft-voiced 
monitress,  the  kind  reprover ;  but  she  is  the  ex- 
ecutioner with  uplifted  voice  and  outstretched 
arm  ;  the  Erinnys  with  snaky  tresses  and  shaken 
torch.  The  man's  name  is  no  more  Pashur,  hut 
Magor  Missabib,  "  terror  on  every  side."  And 
then  the  maddened  soul,  tormented  in  this  flame, 
rushes  forth  into  the  night;  too  often,  alas,  like 
Judas  into  the  midnight  of  remorse  and  of  de- 
spair,— into  the  cell  of  the  madman  and  the 
grave  of  the  suicide  ;  but  sometimes  also,  blessed 
be  God,  into  the  night  indeed  like  Peter,  but  it 
is  to  meet  the  morning  dawn.f  Then  though  the 
Angel  of  Innocence  have  long  vanished,  the  Angel 
of  Repentance  takes  him  gently  by  the  hand. 
Gently  it  leads  the  brokenhearted  penitent  before 
the   tribunal  of    his    better    self,   and    there    his 

*  Tac.  Ann.  xiv.  10.  Cf. 

Quid  fas 

Atque  nefas  tandem  incipiunt  sentire,  peractis 

Criminibus.    Juv.  Sat.  xiii  238. 
f  Lange,  Leben  Jem,. 


62  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

oli  sin,  his  old  weakness,  his  old  pride,  his 
old  will  is  doomed  to  that  death  of  godly  sor- 
row which  even  at  the  eleventh  hour  may  issue 
in  a  new  and  nohler  life,  and  may  once  more 
change  conscience  from  a  source  of  terror  into  a 
source  of  perfect  and  inalienable  peace. 

6.  But  how  if  the  conscience  never  does  awake  ? 
How  if  the  sinner  die  rich  and  increased  with  goods, 
and  there  be  no  bonds  in  his  death,  but  only  at  the 
evening-tide  when  there  is  no  light,  there  peals 
from  heaven,  too  late,  the  dread  and  sudden  voice, 
"  Thou  fool,  this  night,"  and  so  his  dream  be 
broken  ?  What  is  a  dream,  my  brethren  ?  Is  it 
not  to  take  the  substance  for  the  shadow,  and  the 
shadow  for  the  substance  ?  the  transient  for  the 
real,  and  the  real  for  the  transient  ?  time  for  eternity, 
and  eterjiity  for  time.^  Such  a  dream  is  the  life 
of  sin.  And  how  if  it  be  broken — ^not  by  calamity, 
not  by  repentance,  not  even  by  remorse — ^but  by  the 
cold  clear  light  of  eternity  flashed  suddenly  upon  the 
closed  and  dreaming  eyes ;  revealing  all  things  in  their 
true  proportions,  revealing  all  things  in  their  absolute 
reality  ;  revealing  all  things  "  in  the  slow  sure  his- 
tory of  their  ripening  ; "  revealing  all  things  as  they 
are,  not  under  the  glamour  of  sensual  illusion,  not 


THE   VOICE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  63 

under  the  colorings  of  a  treaclierous  philosophy,  not 
through  the  distorting  mists  of  a  self-deceiving  skep- 
ticism :  but  as  they  are  under  the  pure  Eternal  Eyes 
of  the  Living  God  ?  A  man  has  been  known  in  his 
dreams  to  walk  in  perfect  safety  on  the  edge  of 
a  giddy  precipice:  but  let  something  disturb  that 
unwholesome  slumber, — some  light  unknown  to  -the 
sunless  cavern  of  his  own  dreaming  phantasy,  some 
voice  which  is  not  a  mere  dull  echo  of  the  impres- 
sions from  within, — there  is  a  sudden  start,  a  wild 
scream,  a  white  robe  whirling  through  the  air,  and 
he  is  killed.  The  dream  ends,  but  it  ends  in  death  : 
the  waking  certainty  begins,  but  it  begins  in  the 
Eternal  World.  Ah  me,  so  may  it  be  when  the 
chill  dayspring  of  eternity  falls  first  in  all  the  clear- 
ness of  its  agonizing  reality  upon  the  glaring  night  of 
man's  illusions !  "  Like  a  dream  when  one  avaketh  !" 
were  it  not  better  to  awake  to  reality,  to  be  sen- 
sible of  peril  and  folly,  before  the  dream  and  the  life 
are  o'er  ? 

I  have  been  speaking,  my  brethren,  before  a 
great  University,  and  some  may  think  that  I  have 
spoken  on  too  simple  and  plain  a  theme.  But  in 
an  age  when  so  many  deny  that  God  is,  and  so 
many  more  that  He  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that 


64  THE   VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

diligently  seek  Him,  is  it  indeed  too  simple  and 
too  plain  a  theme,  to  call  attention  to  one  of  His 
Voices,  to  appeal  for  its  reality  to  the  facts  of  man's 
experience  ?  If,  as  a  recent  writer  has  truly  said, 
conduct  he  two-thirds  of  life, — if  respecting  so  much 
that  occupies  even  a  good  man's  thoughts  we  should 
rather  pray,  "  Oh  turn  away  mine  eyes  lest  they  he- 
hold  vanity,  hut  quicken  Thou  me  in  Thy  law," — 
if  the  audience  of  a  great  University  he,  after  all, 
composed  mainly  of  youthful  souls  engaged,  as  I 
believe  that  all  of  you  are  engaged,  in  the  hard 
struggle  of  life,  and  the  hard  endeavor  to  do  that 
which  is  right  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  —  and  if, 
again,  the  helping  of  one  immortal  soul  to  gain  the 
victory  over  an  evil  self,  and  fulfil  the  true  law  of 
its  being,  be  a  better  and  a  greater  thing  than  to 
construct  ten  thousand  ingenious  Theodicaeas,  or 
subtle  systems  of  moral  Philosophy,  —  then  are 
these  thoughts  too  simple  ?  Are  they  simpler  than 
Christ  preached  to  the  multitude  on  the  green  hill- 
slopes,  or  John  on  the  scorching  strand  ?  The  lan- 
guage of  apology  sounds  ill  on  the  lips  of  a  minister 
of  Christ.  Better  say  frankly  and  at  once  that  you 
must  look  for  no  feats  of  intellect  or  sophism  here. 
The  religion  we  preach  was  the  religion,  not  of  the 


THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  65 

disdainful  or  the  cynical,  but  of  the  poor  and  the 
simple-hearted.  It  was  proclaimed  in  the  loneli- 
ness of  the  desert  and  nursed  in  the  squalor  of  the 
catacomb :  the  sunrise  of  its  first  day  flushed  over 
the  manger,  and  the  sunset  of  its  last  will  fall  red 
upon  the  cross.  To  you  therefore  I  speak  not  as  wise, 
or  learned,  or  subtle,  or  profound,  but  as  a  human 
soul  to  human  souls,  as  a  dying  man  to  dying  men. 
The  wind  of  heaven  blows  through  the  frail  and 
feeble  reeds,  and  the  voice  of  the  preacher  may  to 
some  ear  be  the  voice  of  God  to-day.  And  if  but 
one  here  feel  that  on  his  soul  is  the  burden  of  in- 
iquity or  the  stain  of  guilt,  if  he  be  suffering  the 
conscience-stricken  misery  of  a  disintegrated  and 
self-despising  life,  then  let  me  point  him  to  the  foot 
of  that  cross  where  alone  the  burden  can  be  re- 
moved, and  the  stain  be  washed  away.  While  you 
are  impenitent  I  know  well  that  you  cannot  be 
happy,  but  rather  like  the  troubled  sea  that  cannot 
rest :  but  I  point  you  thither  where  there  is  comfort 
for  the  wretched,  rest  for  the  anxious,  peace  for 
the  troubled,  purity  for  the  defiled.  You  can  find 
it  in  Christ ;  you  can  find  it  in  the  religion  which 
Christ  came  to  teach  ;  you  can  find  it  nowhere  else. 
Lose  your  faith  in  this,  and  sin  has  no  known  sa- 


66  THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE. 

viour,  nor  guilt  any  possible  expiation.  Oceans  of 
lustral  water  will  not  cleanse,  nor  the  burning  of 
hecatombs  of  sacrifice  atone  for  it,  though  kindled 
with  the  blazing  forests  of  a  thousand  hills.  Lose 
your  faith  in  this,  and  then  for  the  troubled  con- 
science there  is  no  peace ;  not  in  poppy  or  mandra- 
gora  or  all  the  drowsy  syrups  in  the  world.  Since 
time  was,  suffering  humanity  has  been  saying  to 
each  Prophet  in  turn, — 

"  Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased 
And  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote 
Cleanse  the  stuffed  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart  ?  " 

And  the  answer  of  all  others  must  be  "  No ; "  but 
the  answer  of  your  Kedeemer  is  "  Come  unto  me 
and  I  will  give  you  rest."  This  is  the  sum  of  all, 
that  I  have  striven  to  say  to  you.  The  voice  of 
your  conscience  is  the  voice  of  your  God.  Obey  it, 
and  you  will  find  peace  and  holiness  :  disobey  it, 
and  you  will  lose  the  light  of  God's  countenance, 
until  you  repent  and  learn  to  obey  once  more.  But 
to  repent  heartily  is  to  be  forgiven  wholly.  Yes,  I 
preach  to  you  once  more  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
that  forgiveness  purchased  by  the  precious  blood  of 
Christ.     He  alone  can  give  peace  to   the  accusing. 


THE    VOICE    OF    CONSCIENCE.  67 

to  the  gnawing,  to  the  terrified  ;  He  alone  can  wake 
the  sleeping  conscience,  and  call  it  into  life  again 
when  it  is  dead.  "  Neither  is  there  salvation  in 
any  other:  for  there  is  none  other  name  under 
heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we  must  be 
saved."  "I  have  lived,"  said  the  wise  and  gentle 
Hooker  on  his  deathbed,  "  I  have  lived  to  see  this 
world  is  made  up  of  perturbations,  and  have  long 
been  preparing  to  leave  it,  and  gathering  comfort  for 
the  dreadful  hour  of  making  my  account  with  God. 
And  though  I  have,  by  His  grace,  loved  Him  in 
my  youth,  and  feared  Him  in  my  age,  and  labored 
to  have  a  conscience  void  of  offence  towards  God 
and  towards  man :  yet  if  thou,  0  Lord,  be  extreme 
to  mark  what  is  done  amiss,  who  can  abide  it? 
And  therefore,  when  I  have  failed.  Lord,  shew  mercy 
to  me ;  for  I  plead  not  any  righteousness,  but  the  for- 
giveness of  my  unrighteousness,  for  His  merits  who 
died  to  purchase  pardon  for  penitent  sinners."* 

*  Walton's  lAfe  of  Hooker,  ad  fin. 


III. 

THE  VOICE  OF  HISTORY. 


The  heathen  make  much  ado,  and  the  kingdoms  are  moved ;  but 
Grod  hath  shewed  his  voice,  and  the  earth  shall  melt  away. — Ps. 
xlvi.  6.*  

So  far,  my  brethren,  I  have  endeavored  to  en- 
grave yet  more  deeply  upon  our  hearts  the  all-per- 
vading and  unalterable  conviction  that  God,  our 
God,  our  Father,  our  Creator,  is  a  living  God ;  that 
He  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us;  that  His  will  is 
the  sole  intelligible  law  of  our  lives ;  that,  if  at  any 
time  He  seems  to  be  silent,  that  silence  is  not  in 
Him,  but  in  our  own  deafness  and  self-will ;  that,  if 
our  life  be  true  life  at  all,  in  Him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being.  It  is  a  truth  of  infinite  impor- 
tance, because  with  it  I  know  of  nothing  so  glorious, 
without  it  of  nothing  so  despicable  and  insignificant 
as  man.  "  What  is  man  ?  "  asks  David  in  the  8th 
Psalm,  after  he  had  been  gazing  on  the  heavens 
which  broke  over  his  head  into  their  immeasurable 

*  Preached  before  the  University  of  Cambridge,  May  11,  1873. 

(69) 

^^  Off  THB^'^ 
TTW  TTTWTJCJT'P'rT 


70  THE   VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

depth  of  stars ; — and  because  he  feels  that  He  who 
made  those  heavens  is  his  Father  and  his  friend,  he 
answers  in  a  burst  of  exultation,  "  Thou  madest  him 
a  little  lower  than  Grod,  thou  crownedst  him  with 
glory  and  honor : "  but  when,  in  some  flushed  mo- 
ment of  victory,  David  again  asks  in  the  144th 
Psalm  "What  is  man?"  then,  in  the  midst  of  hu- 
man malignity  and  human  meanness,  thinking  only 
of  man  witliout  God,  he  sorrowfully  answers,  "  Man 
is  like  a  thing  of  nought ; " — and  immediately  after- 
wards, as  though  in  a  burst  of  incontroUable  dis- 
gust at  the  crew  of  liars  and  blasphemers  by  whom 
he  is  surrounded,  he  cries,  "Cast  out  Thy  lightnings 
and  tear  them ;  shoot  forth  Thine  arrows  and  con- 
sume them : " — feeling  as  all  the  best  men  have  ever 
felt,  that  when  God  is  with  us  we  may  rejoice  in 
"  the  glories  of  our  birth  and  state,"  but  that  man 
when  he  forgets,  man  when  he  loses,  much  more 
man  when  he  abnegates  his  God,  is  a  creature  so 
petty,  so  foolish,  so  ephemeral,  so  infinitely  to  be 
pitied,  that,  unless  his  whole  race  can  be  purified  by 
baptisms  of  fire,  it  were  almost  better  that  it  should 
cease  to  be. 

If  then  we  would  rise  to  the  full  grandeur  of 
our  being,  if  we  would  live  worthy  of  our  immortal- 


THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY.  71 

ity,  let  us  bend  our  sternest  efforts,  let  us  strain  our 
noblest  faculties,  let  us  absorb  our  entire  beings  in 
this  one  aim,  to  see  God's  face,  to  hear  His  voice, 
to  do  His  will.  And  since  we  have  considered  how 
He  speaks  to  us  in  Nature,  which  is  the  translucence 
of  His  energy ;  in  the  Moral  Law,  which  is  the  epit- 
ome of  His  will;  in  Conscience,  which  is  the  voice 
of  His  Spirit ;  in  Scripture,  which  is  the  revelation 
of  His  Son; — let  us  try  to-day  to  mark  how  He 
speaks  to  us  also  in  History,  which  is  "  the  con- 
science of  the  human  race,"  and  which  has  never 
been  more  adequately  described  than  as  "the  pro- 
phetical interpreter  of  that  most  sacred  epic  of 
which  God  is  the  poet,  and  Humanity  the  theme." 

If,  my  brethren,  man  were  the  abject  thing  to 
which  modern  materialism  would  degrade  him,  His- 
tory would  have  no  significance.  It  would  be  bujt 
like  a  lamp  hung  at  a  ship's  stern  as  she  is  driven 
by  chance  winds  over  a  shoreless  sea, — ^warning  of 
no  peril,  lighting  to  no  anchorage,  only  flinging  its 
ghastly  lustre  over  a  white  wake  of  wandering  foam. 
But,  when  we  believe,  as  we  do  believe,  that  man  is 
a  member  of  Christ,  a  child  of  God,  an  inheritor  of 
the  Kingdom  of  heaven;  then  indeed  the  history  of 
man  becomes  a  noble  study ;  it  becomes  a  chapter 


72  THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY. 

in  that  book  of  Kevelation  which  enables  us  to  rec- 
ognize in  the  ways  of  God  an  order  at  once  im- 
mutable and  divine.  He  who  can  believe  that  the 
story  of  nations  is  but  a  confusion  of  whirling  ma- 
chinery which  no  spirit  permeates  or  guides  must 
indeed  despise  it  as  an  old  almanac,  or  an  agreed- on 
fable ;  but  in  this  respect  the  ancient  histories  were 
more  religious  than  many  of  the  modern, — from  the 
Aibg  <r  ereTieieTo  ^ovlrj  of  the  mighty  Iliad,  dowu  to  the 
fine  remark  of  Polybius  that  "  History  offers  the 
highest  of  education,  and  that  it  alone,  without  in- 
jury, teaches  us  from  every  season  and  circumstance 
to  be  true  judges  of  what  is  best."  One  great  histori- 
an indeed  of  antiquity  is  doubtful  and  gloomy.  ^^I 
can  come,"  he  says,  "to  no  certain  conclusion  as  to 
whether  the  affairs  of  men  are  guided  by  the  im- 
mutable law  of  destiny,  or  by  the  whirling  wheel  of 
chance."*  And  yet  it  is  evident  that  the  whole 
leaning  of  Tacitus  was  towards  the  nobler  faith,  and 
if  he  seems  to  waver,  it  is  only  because  he  confined 
his  view  to  too  limited  a  range.  Fallen  on  very 
evil  times,  encircled  like  our  own  great  poet  with 
the  barbarous  dissonance  of  an  abominable  age, 
gazing  only  on  the  sunset  of  Koman  liberty  as  its 

*  Tac.  Ann.  vi.  22.     Cf.  iii.  18,  H.  i.  18,  etc. 


THE    VOICE    OF    IIISTOllY.  73 

orb  sank  slowly  into  seas  of  blood,  he  judged  of 
man's  destiny  rather  as  a  biographer  than  as  an 
historian. 

But  a  biographer  may  easily  mistake  the  middle 
for  the  end,  and  fail  to  see  that  the  apparent  discord 
in  the  organ  music  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  its  close. 
We  read  the  lives  of  the  saints  of  God,  and  we  are 
perplexed  at  first  and  saddened  to  observe  how  one 
after  another  may  seem  to  have  perished  broken- 
hearted and  despised.  One  may  be  slowly  torn  to 
pieces  like  Fra  Dolcino,  and  another  may  be  tortured 
and  strangled  like  Savonarola,  and  another  burnt 
like  Huss,  and  another  driven  to  say  with  the  un- 
daunted Hildebrand,  "I  have  loved  righteousness 
and  hated  iniquity,  and  therefore  I  die  in  exile," 
and  another  may  faint  to  death  in  chilling  anguish 
like  Xavier  upon  the  lonely  shore :  but  let  us  not 
also  fail  to  notice,  that  one  and  all,  amid  defeat  and 
dishonor,  and  desertion,  they  never  lose  the  beatific 
vision  and  the  transcendant  hope :  one  and  all  they 
«tretch  forth  their  hands  in  glorious  anticipation  of 
the  farther  shore.  Let  us  neither  be  deceived  nor 
saddened  by  such  books  as  that  great  recent  work 
of  fiction,  which  shews  to  us  the  hopeless  failure  of 
so  many  human  ideals,  and  the  chilling  sadness  of 


74  THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

SO  many  human  lives.*  True,  that  the  loftier  the 
ideal,  the  more  complete  may  seem  to  be  the  failure ; 
and  the  more  unselfish  the  purpose,  the  more  sad 
the  life.  In  seeming^  not  in  reality.  Each  high 
ideal  is  a  prophecy  which,  later  if  not  sooner,  brings 
about  its  own  fulfilment.  No  good  deed  dies :  be  it 
a  rejoicing  river,  be  it  but  a  tiny  rill  of  human  noble- 
ness, yet,  so  it  be  pure  and  clean,  never  has  it  been 
lost  in  the  poisonous  marshes  or  choked  in  the  mud- 
dy sands.  It  flows  inevitably  into  that  great  river 
of  the  water  of  life  which  is  not  lost,  save — if  that 
be  to  be  lost — in  the  infinite  ocean  of  God's  Eternal 
Love.  And  it  is  their  intuition  of  this  truth  which 
makes  the  Idylls  of  our  great  poet  truer  than  the 
fictions  of  our  great  novelist.  The  blameless  king 
murmurs  indeed,  amid  the  broken  soliloquies  of  his 
last  troubled  night, 

"  I  found  Him  in  the  shining  of  the  stars, 
I  saw  Him  in  the  flowering  of  His  fields, 
But  in  His  ways  with  man  I  found  Him  not :  '*■ 

yet  he  never  doubts  of  his  mission,  or  wavers  in  his 
purpose.  The  harp  that  has  been  prostituted  and 
jangled  on  earth  shines  still  among  the  stars,  and  to 
the  greatly  innocent,  and  to  the  sincerely  penitent, 

*  Middlemarch. 


THE   VOICE   OF    HISTORY.  75 

and  to  the  angels  up  in  heaven,  its  music  is  still  un- 
disturbed.* And  so,  as  the  king  dies  deeply  wounded 
on  the  misty  shore,  yet  the  bark  which  carried  him 
vanishes  away  into  the  light,  "and  the  new  sun  rose 
bringing  the  new  year."f  Yes,  this  is  the  true  and 
eternal  lesson.  Ask  all  good  men  who  have  ever 
died  even  in  bitterest  failure  whether  they  would 
not  scorn  either  to  fear  or  change,  and  would  they 
not  answer  with  godlike  unanimity,  "  Is  not  the  life 
more  than  meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment?" 
We  sought  the  struggle  not  the  victory,  the  service 
not  the  reward.  Though  He  slay  us  yet  will  we  trust 
in  Him ;  but  we  have  no  fear ;  He  will  not  slay  us ; 
He,  the  faithful  God,  who  keepeth  covenant,  will 
not  fling  us  aside  like  broken  implements,  or  mock 
us  with  delusive  hopes ; 

"  "WTioso  has  felt  the  Spirit  of  the  Highest 

Cannot  confound,  or  doubt  Him,  or  deny : 
Tea,  with  one  voice,  oh  world,  though  thou  deniest, 
Stand  thou  on  that  side ;  for  on  this  am  L" 

If  then  we  fail  at  times  to  see  this  truth  in  the 
little  facts  of  our  own  lives,  let  us  look  beyond  them, 
and  see  it  writ  large  upon  the  history  of  nations. 
What  would  a  man  know  of  the  sea  by  standing  but 

*  Tristram.  f  Morte  d! Arthur. 


76  THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY. 

an  hour  or  two  beside  its  waters  in  some  small  bay  ? 
could  he  suppose  that  there  was  anything  but  idle 
chance  in  its  little  eddies  or  sweeping  currents  amid 
the  windings  of  the  shore,  as  it  is  fretted  by  chance 
puffs  of  wind,  or  sways  over  great  beds  of  seaweed, 
or  is  torn  by  protruding  rocks  ?  But  let  him  study 
the  phenomena  of  the  whole  great  deep  itself,  and 
then  he  will  learn  with  what  magnificent  and  uner- 
ring regularity  the  moon  sways  the  tidal  march  of 
those  mighty  waters  which,  as  they  roll  onwards, 
majestic  and  irresistible  whether  in  ebb  or  flow,  re- 
fresh and  purify  the  world.  Nor  is  it  otherwise 
with  History.  A  physical  accident,  a  criminal  am- 
bition, a  misinterpreted  despatch,  nay,  even  the 
changing  of  a  wind,  the  stumbling  of  a  horse,  the 
depression  of  an  omen,  may  seem  to  have  influenced 
the  fortune  of  nations  :  but  these  are,  in  reality,  but 
eddies  and  bubbles  on  the  surface  of  the  advancing 
or  receding  tide ;  and,  if  not  in  our  threescore  years 
and  ten,  yet  in  the  long  millenniums  of  history,  we 
see  the  great  tidal  waves  of  retribution  overwhelm- 
ing every  nation  which  forgets  the  eternal  distinction 
of  Eight  and  Wrong, — we  hear  that  voice  of  seven 
thunders  which  every  true  historian  has  always 
heard,  proclaiming  aloud  that  "  for  every  false  word 


THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY.  77 

and  unrighteous  deed,  for  insult  and  oppression,  for 
lust  and  vanity,  the  price  has  to  be  paid  at  last. 
Truth  and  justice  alone  endure  and  live.  Falsehood 
and  injustice  may  be  long-lived,  but  doomsday 
comes  to  thorn  in  the  end." 

Yes,  eveiy  great  historian  should  be  no  dull 
registrar  of  events,  but  a  prophet,  standing,  like 
him  of  old,  amid  the  careless  riot  and  luxurious 
banqueting  of  life,  and  teaching  men  to  decipher 
that  gleaming  message  of  God,  written,  as  with  the 
fingers  of  a  man's  hand,  on  the  parliament  of  na- 
tions and  the  palaces  of  kings,  that  what  is  morally 
just  must  be  politically  expedient,  that  "what  is 
morally  wrong  cannot  be  politically  right."  And 
in  doing  this  the  Hebrew  prophets  have  been  our 
truest  teachers,  nor  have  any  teachers  ever  enforced 
that  great  lesson  with  such  divine  insight,  with 
such  unalterable  certitude,  with  such  passionate  in- 
tensity as  they.  Around  their  little  insignificant 
strip  of  plain,  and  hill,  and  valley,  towered  the  co- 
lossal kingdoms  of  a  cruel  and  splendid  heathen- 
dom ;  but  to  their  enlightened  eyes  these,  in  their 
guiltiness,  were  but  phantoms  on  their  way  to  ruin, 
casting  a  weird  and  sombre  shadow  athwart  the 
sunlit  horizons  of  a  certain  hope.      What  matter 


78  THE   VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

their  force,  their  splendor,  their  multitude,  if  they 
stand  before  the  slow-moving  chariot  of  the  Eternal 
God  ?  Is  it  the  Kenite  ?  "  Strong-is  thy  dwelling- 
place,  and  thou  puttest  thy  nest  in  a  rock  ;  never- 
theless the  Kenite  shall  be  wasted."  Is  it  Assyria  ? 
"  The  Lord,  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  shall  send  among 
his  fat  ones  leanness,  and  kindle  under  his  glory  a 
burning  fire."  Is  it  Egypt  ?  Her  wise  magicians 
shall  be  smitten  with  fatuity,  and  the  papyrus  of 
her  rivers  fade.  Is  it  golden  Babylon,  the  city  of 
the  oppressor  ?  The  dead,  moved  at  his  coming, 
ask  her  king  with  gibbering  taunts,  "  Art  thou  also 
become  weak  as  we  ?  art  thou  become  like  unto  us  ?  " 
Is  it  purple  Tyrus  with  her  priceless  merchandise  ? 
"  Take  a  harp,  go  about  the  city,  thou  harlot,  that 
hast  been  forgotten."  And  so  with  all.  "  The  na- 
tions shall  rush  like  the  rushing  of  many  waters, 
but  God  shall  rebuke  them  ;  and  they  shall  flee  far 
off,  and  shall  be  chased  as  the  chaff  of  the  moun- 
tains before  the  wind,  and  like  a  rolling  thing 
before  the  whirlwind.  And  behold  at  evening- 
tide  trouble  ;  and  before  the  morning  he  is  not." 
"  This,"  exclaims  the  prophet  in  a  flame  of  trium- 
phant zeal,  "  this  is  the  portion  of  them  that  spoil 
us,  and  the  lot  of  them  that  rob  us." 


THE    VOICE   OF    HISTORY.  79 

Thus  over  the  heads  of  the  enemies  of  Israel  did 
her  prophets  roll,  like  a  Pyriphlegethon  of  living 
fire,  the  denunciation  of  God's  wrath  on  sin.  Never 
had  any  nation  been  taught  that  lesson  as  Israel 
had  been  taught  it,  from  the  fearful  eloquence  of 
the  maledictions  upon  Ebal,  down  to  the  days  when 
Isaiah  wailed  his  dirge  over  "  Ariel,  the  Lion  of 
God,  the  city  where  David  dwelt."  Nor  had  they 
been  taught  by  words  alone.  When  Israel  was  yet 
a  child  God  loved  him,  and  out  of  Egypt  He  called 
His  son.  In  the  Old  Testament  we  see  that  son 
grow  up  to  life.  Many  were  the  sins,  the  follies, 
the  apostasies  of  his  youth.  Can  you  point  me  to 
one  folly  which  was  not  visited  with  its  natural 
consequences  ?  to  one  pleasant  vice  which  did  not 
become  its  own  punishment  ?  to  one  sin  which  was 
not  lashed  with  its  own  appropriate  scourge.^ 
Then  came  the  ruinous  and  crushing  humiliation  of 
the  Babylonish  Captivity.  A  remnant,  which  they 
themselves  compared  but  to  the  chaff  of  the  wheat, 
returned ;  and  of  the  old  temptation,  the  tempta- 
tion to  a  sensual  idolatry,  they  were  cured  for  ever. 
But  they  were  not  saved  from  other  sins.  Keeping 
the  form  of  their  religion  they  lost  its  spirit ;  from 
a  living  truth  they  suffered  it  to  degenerate  into  a 


80 


THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 


meaningless  ritual,  into  a  dead  formula,  into  a  hyp- 
ocritical sham.  They  had  for  centuries  been  hoping, 
dreaming,  talking  of  a  Messiah,  and  their  Messiah 
came ;  and  how  did  they  receive  Him  ?  they  received 
Him  with  yells  of  "  Crucify."  And  there,  in  Scrip- 
ture, at  the  Cross  which  consummated  their  in- 
iquity, the  story  of  their  nation  ends.  But  History, 
which  proves  the  responsibility  of  nations.  History 
adds  its  chapter  to  the  Sacred  book.  It  shews  how 
soon  the  wings  of  every  vulture  flapped  heavily  over 
the  corpse  of  a  nation  that  had  fallen  into  moral 
death.  Some  of  those  who  had  shared  in  that 
scene,  and  myriads  of  their  children,  shared  also  in 
the  long  horror  of  that  siege  which,  for  its  unutter- 
able fearfulness,  stands  unparalleled  in  the  story  of 
mankind.  They  had  shouted,  "  We  have  no  king 
but  Caesar,"  and  they  had  no  king  but  Csesar,  and 
leaving  only  for  a  time  the  grotesque  phantom  of  a 
local  royalty,  Caesar  after  Caesar  outraged  and  pil- 
laged them,  till  at  last  their  Caesar  slaked,  in  tlae 
blood  of  his  best  defenders,  the  red  ashes  of  their 
desecrated  Temple.  They  had  forced  the  Komans 
to  crucify  their  Christ;  and  they  were  themselves 
crucified  in  myriads  by  the  Komans  outside  their 
walls,  till  room  failed  for  the  crosses,  and  wood  to 


THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY.  81 

make  them  with.  They  had  preferred  a  murderer 
to  their  Messiah,  and  for  them  there  was  no  Messiah 
more,  while  a  murderer's  dagger  swayed  the  last 
counsels  of  their  dying  race.  They  had  accepted 
the  guilt  of  blood,  and  the  last  pages  of  their  his- 
tory were  glued  together  with  that  crimson  stain; 
and,  to  this  day,  he  who  will  walk  round  about  Je- 
rusalem sees  in  its  ever-extending  miles  of  grave- 
stones and  ever-lengthening  pavements  of  tombs 
and  sepulchres,  a  vivid  emblem  of  that  field  which 
Judas  bought  with  the  price  of  his  iniquity, — a 
potter's  field  to  bury  strangers  in,  an  Akeldama,  a 
Field  of  blood. 

2.  I  turn  from  Judaea  to  the  short  but  splendid 
tragedy  of  Athenian  history ;  how  short,  how  bril- 
liant, how  terrible,  you  all  know  well.  Yes,  we  owe 
to  Greece  an  infinite  debt  of  intellectual  gratitude. 
The  exquisite  ideal  of  beauty  of  her  race,  the  grace, 
the  subtlety,  the  activity  of  her  intellect,  the  per- 
fection and  supremacy  of  her  art,  the  power  and  splen- 
dor of  her  literature,  conferred  upon  her  a  wreath 
of  unfading  admiration.  0  had  she  but  learned 
righteousness  ;  had  she  but  won  the  grace  to  obey, 
as  she  had  received  the  insight  to  read  that  law 
written  upon  the  fleshy  tablets  of  her  heart !     But 


82  THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

she  cliose  otherwise ;  and  now  the  world  may  learn 
as  memorable  a  lesson  from  the  rapidity  of  her  fall, 
and  the  utterness  of  her  extinction,  as  from  all  be- 
sides ;  for  the  ever-needed  moral  of  that  little  hour 
in  which  she  played  her  part  upon  the  lighted  stage 
is  this,  that  intellect  without  holiness,  beauty  with- 
out purity,  eloquence  without  conscience,  art  with- 
out religion,  insight  without  love,  are  but  blossoms 
whose  root  and  life  are  in  the  corruption  of  the 
grave.  All  these  gifts  combined  saved  her  not  from 
being  eaten  away  by  that  fretting  leprosy  of  her  fa- 
vorite sins,  which  degraded  the  Mapaduvo/idxv^  of  her 
youthful  glory  into  the  Graeculus  esuriens  of  her 
consuming  degradation.  With  what  fearful  stern- 
ness was  the  career  of  Athens  cut  short!  It  was 
but  ninety  years  after  her  handful  of  heroes  had 
clashed  into  the  countless  hosts  of  Persia  and  rout- 
ed them,  that  her  walls  were  razed  among  the  songs 
and  shouts  of  her  insulting  enemies..  Some  who 
had  seen  the  one  might  have  seen  the  other.  And 
when  the  hour  of  her  ruin  came,  when,  on  that 
sleepless  September  night  of  terror  and  agony,  down 
the  long  walls  from  the  Peiraeus  to  the  Acropolis 
rang  that  bitter  unbroken  wail  which  told  that  the 
fleet  of  Athens  had  been  destroyed  at  Aegospotami; 


THE   VOICE   OF    HISTORY.  83 

it  is  one  of  her  own  sons  who  tells  us  that  it  was 
the  shameful  consciousness  of  her  former  tyrannies; 
it  was  the  avenging  memory  of  Melos,  and  Torone, 
and  Scione,  that  made  that  bitter  hour  more  bitter 
still,  by  bidding  her  remember  that  even-handed 
Justice  was  but  commending  to  her  own  lips  the  in- 
gredients of  that  poisoned  chalice  which  in  the  plen- 
itude of  her  pride  and  selfishness  she  had  forced 
the  weak,  and  the  defeated,  and  the  unfortunate  to 
drink.*  A  great  lesson  doubtless,  but  the  real 
lesson  of  Grecian  history  is  deeper,  more  universal, 
more  permanent  than  this ;  and  surely  in  days 
when  some  men,  in  the  worst  spirit  of  the  tainted 
and  godless  renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century,  are 
beginning  shamelessly  to  preach  a  corrupt  Hellen- 
ism, which  regards  sin  forsooth  with  aesthetic  tolera- 
tion,— ^in  days  when  we  have  read  the  thoughts  of 
one  calmly  arguing  an  ideal  so  wretched  and  so  base 
as  that  it  is  best  to  crowd  life  with  the  greatest 
number  of  pleasurable  sensations, — in  days  when 
hearing  has  been  found  for  theories  of  an  artistic 
effeminacy,  which,  one  hopes,  would  have  made  even 
Antisthenes  and  Epicurus  blush, — it  is  time,  I  say, 
to  read  again  that  stigma  of  infamy  which  the 
*  Xen.  Hell.  iL  1,  2. 


84  THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

Apostle  branded  for  ever  on  the  unblushful  forehead 
of  the  paganism  which  he  saw,  that  its  sons  "be- 
came vain  in  their  imaginations,  and  their  foolish 
heart  was  darkened ; "  that  it  was  God  Himself  who 
gave  them  over  to  vile  affections,  and  to  a  reprobate 
mind,  because,  "knowing  the  judgment  of  God, 
that  they  which  do  such  things  are  worthy  of  death, 
they  not  only  did  the  same,  but  had  pleasure  in 
them  that  did  them." 

3.  Take  but  one  more  prominent  example  from 
ancient  days  to  shew  that  there  is  no  distinction 
between  the  sacred  and  the  secular,  and  that  pro- 
fane history  is  sacred  too.  From  the  palsied  hands 
of  Greece,  Kome  rudely  snatched  the  sceptre.  And 
you  know  that  so  long  as  the  character  of  Rome 
was  simple  and  self-respecting;  so  long  as  her 
family  life  was  pure  and  sweet ;  so  long  as  she  was 
the  Rome  of  the  Camilli,  the  Cincinnati,  the  Fabii, 
the  elder  Scipios  ;  so  long  as  her  dictators  came 
from  the  honest  labor  of  the  ploughshare,  and  her 
consuls  from  the  hardy  self-denial  of  the  farm,  so 
long  she  prospered  till  none  could  withstand  her, 
and  impressed  the  world  with  lessons  of  law  and 
order  and  discipline  manlier  and  better,  than  any 
which  Greece  had  taught.     But,  when  the  dregs  of 


THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY.  85 

every  foreign  iniquity  poured  their  noisome  stream 
into  the  Tiber  ;  when  the  old  iron  discipline  had 
yielded  to  an  effeminate  luxury  and  a  gilded  pollu- 
tion ;  when  her  youth  had  grown  debased,  and 
enervated,  and  false  ;  when  all  regard  had  been 
lost  in  her  for  man's  honor  and  woman's  purity ; 
when  her  trade  had  become  a  flagrant  imposture 
and  her  religion  a  dishonest  sham  ;  when,  lastly,  her 
literature  became  a  seething  scum  of  cynicism  and 
abomination  such  as  degrades  the  very  conception 
of  humanity, — then  you  know  how  justly,  in  long 
slow  agony,  the  charnel-house  of  her  dominion  crum- 
bled away  under  the  assaults  of  all  her  enemies,  and 

"  Rome,  whom  mightiest  kingdoms  curtsied  to, 
Like  a  forlorn  and  desperate  castaway. 
Did  shameful  execution  on  herself." 

And  why  did  that  giant  power  fall  into  frag- 
ments before  the  weak  hands  which  held  a  despised 
and  hated  cross?  Why?  because,  and  only  be- 
cause, God  is  King ;  because  in  the  long  run  there 
is  nothing  fruitful  but  sacrifice ;  because  it  is  self 
denial  not  luxury,  humility  not  insolence,  love  no 
violence,  justice  not  ambition,  which  overthrow  the 
world. 

4.     And  that  Christian  Church,  why  was  it  that 


86  THE   VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

it  too  fell  from  that  splendid  eminence  to  which  by 
the  immense  ascendancy  of  justice,  and  the  faith  in 
Eternal  Laws,  it  had  attained  in  the  days  of  a 
Hildebrand,  and  an  Innocent  ?  What  was  it  but 
crime  after  crime  that  dashed  the  Papacy  into  dis- 
honored ruin?  The  boundless  ambition  of  Boni- 
face YIII.,  the  greedy  avarice  of  John  XXII.,  the 
shameful  violences  of  Urban  VI.,  the  unblushing 
nepotism  of  Sixtus  IV.,  the  execrable  crimes  of 
Alexander  VI.,  the  aggrandizing  wars  of  Julius  II., 
it  was  not  till  the  disgusted  nations  had  long  been 
alienated  by  such  spectacles  as  these  that  a  humble 
monk  of  Erfurdt,  rising  in  the  irresistible  might  of 
moral  indignation,  shattered  the  supremacy  of  the 
Vatican  for  ever.  I  might  go  on  with  history  j  I 
might  ask  why  Spain,  once  the  Lady  of  Kingdoms, 
is  now  the  most  despised  and  impotent  of  European 
powers ;  I  might  ask  what  changed  the  strong  and 
righteous  England  of  the  Commonwealth,  to  the 
nation  which  suffered  a  perjured  trifler  to  sell  Dun- 
kirk, and  live  in  infamy  on  the  subsidies  of  France  ; 
I  might  ask  how  comes  it  that  at  this  very  day  our 
beloved  English  Church,  working  as  she  is  now  begin- 
ning so  heartily  to  do,  amid  the  hatred  of  her  oppo- 
nents and  the  disunion  of  her  sons,  may,  even  yet 


THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY.-  87 

be  unable  to  escape,  by  her  late  repentance,  the 
Nemesis  of  falling  axe  and  kindled  flame  due  to  the 
sluggish  impotence  and  truckling  worldliness  of  her 
18th  century.  But  though  time  forbids  this,  I 
ought  not  to  take  all  our  instances  from  the  past 
when  one  flagrant  illustration  of  this  great  truth 
has  happened  in  the  present,  and  under  the  very 
eyes  of  the  youngest  here.  Is  there,  I  ask,  no  plain, 
no  unmistakable  lesson  in  the  collapse  and  catas- 
trophe of  modern  France  ?  Warnings  enough  she 
had  received;  warnings  of  splendor  overwhelmed 
with  darkness,  warnings  of  strength  smitten  into 
decrepitude,  warnings  of  defeat,  warnings  of  mas- 
sacre, warnings  of  revolution,  from  the  day  when 
her  great  monarch  so  sadly  confessed  to  the  little 
child  "  I  have  loved  war  too  much "  to  the  day 
when,  in  the  living  tomb  of  St.  Helena,  her  imperial 
conqueror  had  time  to  meditate  on  his  audacious 
blasphemy — "men  of  my  stamp  do  not  commit 
crimes."  But  as  fast  as  she  had  received  such  les- 
sons, she  had,  alas !  forgotten  them.  Her  religion 
had  become  a  godless  materialism ;  her  practice  a 
calculated  sensuality ;  her  literature  a  cynical  jour- 
nalism which  sneered  at  every  belief,  and  a  leprous 
fiction  which   poisoned  every  virtue.     She  trusted 


88  THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

in  her  armies,  in  her  numbers,  in  her  prestige,  in 
the  elan  of  her  soldiers,  in  the  persiflage  of  her 
journalists,  in  the  vaporing  patriotism  of  her  boule- 
vards,— ^in  anything  and  everything  save  in  God 
and  right.  And  what  came  of  it  ?  Her  magnifi- 
cence melted  away  like  a  vision  of  the  Apocalypae ; 
her  unfortunate  Emperor  became  a  despised,  broken 
idol;  like  the  corpse  of  some  exhumed  king,  her 
strength  slipped  into  ashes  at  a  touch.  And  the 
causes  of  this  were  too  obvious  to  miss.  They  lay 
in  her  puerile  vanity,  her  administrative  corruption, 
her  universal  effeminacy  ;  they  lay  in  the  bourgeois 
materialism  which  desired  nothing  but  vulgar  lux- 
ury; in  the  absence  of  all  dignity  and  seriousness 
in  the  old,  and  of  all  discipline  and  subordination 
in  the  youug.*  These  sorrowful  accusations  are 
taken  not  from  the  indictment  of  her  enemies,  but 
from  the  confession  of  her  sons :  they  are  from  a 
book  of  a  member  of  her  Institute.  "  Tainted  all 
of  us,"  says  another,  "  in  the  depth  of  our  hearts, 
we  must  disengage  ourselves  from  our  habits,  from 
our  morals,  from  our  facilities,  from  our  conventions 
of  yesterday,  to  reascend  to  the  primitive  sources  of 
humanity  and  ask  ourselves  simply  but  resolutely 
*  Renan,  La  BSforme  intellect,  et  morale,  passim. 


THE    VOICE    OF    HISTORY.  89 

the  question — Is  it  right,  distinctly  Yes  or  No, 
that  there  should  be  a  God,  a  morality,  a  society,  a 
family  ?  ought  woman  to  be  respected  ?  ought  man 
to  toil  ?  Is  truth  the  end  ;  is  justice  the  support ; 
is  the  good  absolute  ?  Yes,  yes,  a  thousand  times 
Yes !  And  societies,  governments,  families,  indi- 
viduals, can  they,  if  they  would  be  noble,  durable, 
fruitful,  do  without  these  conditions  ?  No,  no,  a 
thousand  times  No."  *  Such  was  the  lesson  of  the 
late  prostration  and  calamity  of  France,  read  not  by 
me  but  by  one  of  themselves,  even  a  prophet  of 
their  own ;  by  one  who  has  done  his  best  to  help 
the  corruption  he  deplores,  and  whose  very  name  I 
can  hardly  mention  here.  And  yet,  so  little  has  it 
been  learnt,  that  I  read  how  but  a  few  days  ago 
one  of  her  most  prominent  statesmen  asserted,  amid 
the  applause  and  laughter  of  his  audience,  that  God 
permits  the  existence  of  so  many  iniquities  that  He 
cannot  be  regarded  as  of  much  account  in  estimating 
the  progress  of  the  world  !  f 

*  Alex.  Dumas,  fils,  Une  Lettre  mr  lea  Ghoses  du  Jour,  p.  30. 

f  "  These  gentlemen  declared  that  they  acknowledged  no  con- 
trolling power  but  God  and  their  conscience.  As  for  the  former 
of  these  powers,  it  has  permitted  so  many  iniquities  to  be  perpe- 
trated that  its  invocation  cannot  be  said  to  have  much  influence 
in  human  aifairs "  (applause  and  laughter).  From  a  Times  re- 
port of  one  of  M.  Gambetta's  speeches. 


90  THE   VOICE    OF    HISTORY. 

This  then  is  the  law,  this  the  philosophy  of 
History.  And  it  not  only  is  but  must  be  so,  be- 
cause the  will  of  Grod  governs  the  universe,  and 
God's  will  is  the  moral  law. 

And  therefore  all  unrighteousness  is  sin,  and  all 
sin  is,  necessarily,  weakness.  You  will  not,  I  am 
sure,  ask  me  what  you  have  to  do  with  all  this  ? 
what  the  history  of  nations  has  to  do  with  you  ?  It 
has  everything  to  do  with  every  one  of  you.  For 
each  biography  is  but  a  fragment  of  history ;  each 
soul  but  an  epitome  of  the  world.  Nations  are  but 
aggregates  of  such  as  you ;  and  Universities  are  no 
small  part  of  a  nation's  life ;  and  if  this  University 
send  forth,  year  by  year,  men  who  are  brave,  because 
their  consciences  are  clear  and  their  hearts  are 
pure  ;  if,  year  by  year,  Cambridge  add  to  the  life  of 
England  her  stream  of  youthful  students  who  are 
manly,  and  soberminded,  and  fearless,  and  faithful, 
then  she  will  be  adding  no  small  momentum  to  the 
forces  which  keep  England  great.  But,  on  the 
other  hand, 

"  Vain  miglitiest  fleets  of  iron  framed, 
,  Vain  those  all-conquering  gtma, 
Unless  proud  England  keep  untamed 
The  true  heart  of  her  sons." 

Your  lot     is   cast   in  stirring   and   not   untroubled 


THE   VOICE   OF   HISTORY.  91 

times.  Before  you  die  there  will  hav^  been  many  a 
vast  change  in  the  constitution  of  society,  and  many 
a  battle  of  God  will  have  been  lost  or  won.  Oh 
may  you  fight  on  God's  side !  Fight  against  greed, 
fight  against  falsity,  fight  against  faithlessness,  fight 
against  uncleanness  in  your  own  hearts,  and  so  shall 
you  be  ready  for  all  God's  work  both  now  and  any 
time  hereafter,  until  your  Master  gives  you  the  sig- 
nal that  you  may  fall  out  of  the  ranks,  or  it  is  time 
for  you,  not  as  men  might  say  in  their  despair,  to 
give  up  their  broken  swords  to  Fate  the  Conqueror, 
but  to  yield  your  pure  souls  to  your  Captain  Christ. 
Then,  whatever  happens,  your  life  will  not  have 
been  in  vain;  then  having  heard  His  voice  here  you 
shall  be  with  Him  hereafter,  and  you  shall  say,  as 
you  stand,  with  bowed  head  indeed  and  awful  rev- 
erence, but  yet  a  forgiven  and  an  accepted  child 
before  that  unutterable  glory, — ^you  shall  say,  with 
such  joy  as  here  the  heart  of  man  cannot  conceive, 
"  I  have  heard  of  Thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear, 
but  now^  mine  eye  seeth  Thee." 


IV. 

WHAT  GOD  REQUmES. 


Wliere-with  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow  myself  before 
the  high  God  ?  shall  I  come  before  Him  with  burnt  offerings, 
with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  "Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with 
thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ? 
shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my 
body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul?  He  hath  shewed -thee,  O  man, 
what  is  good ;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to 
do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy 
God?— MiCAHvi.6-8.  * 


Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and 
bow  myself  before  the  Most  High  God  ?  It  is  in- 
deed a  momentous  .question,  the  most  momentous 
that  can  be  framed  in  mortal  words.  For  as  we 
enter  deeper  into  the  valley  of  life,  and  its  rocks 
begin  more  and  more  to  overshadow  us,  to  what  do 
all  the  other  questions  of  life  reduce  themselves  ? 
To  any  man  who  has  the  slightest  sense  of  Keligion, 
— to  any  man,  who,  with  all  his  imperfections,  yet 
solemnly  feels  that  if  life  is  to  be  life  at  all,  every 
year  must  bring  him  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  great 

*  A  Lent  Sermon,  preached  at  the  Chapel  Royal,  St.  James's, 
February  16,  1872. 

(93) 


94  WHAT   GOD    REQUIRES. 

Light, — to  all  whom  the  sorrows  and  disappoint- 
ments of  life  have  for  ever  disenchanted, — no  hope, 
no  thought,  no  question  remains  hut  this,  Is  God's 
love  with  me  ?  Am  I  at  peace  with  Him  ?  In  one 
word,  am  I  His  ?  Oh !  if  not,  how  shall  I,  the  low 
liest  of  His  creatures — how  shall  I  approach  Him  ? 
What  else  can  I  care  for  but  this  ?  Kemove  the 
fear  of  Grod's  displeasure,  and  I  have  no  other  fear. 
Give  me  the  joy  of  His  countenance,  and  I  ask  no 
other  joy.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  illusions 
of  youth,  they  have  vanished  from  the  eyes  of  man- 
hood. The  winds  have  carried  those  bubbles  beyond 
the  river,  or,  as  we  seemed  to  touch  them,  they 
have  burst ;  but  one  thing  have  I"  desired  of  the 
Lord,  that  will  I  seek  after,  even  to  behold  the  fair 
beauty  of  the  Lord,  and  to  visit  His  Temple. 
Wherewith  then  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and 
bow  myself  before  the  Most  High  God  ? 

Many  and  various,  in  all  ages,  have  been  the 
answers  to  that  question,  but  in  spirit  and  principle 
they  reduce  themselves  to  the  three,  which  in  these 
verses  are  tacitly  rejected,  that  the  fourth  may  be 
established  for  all  time.  And,  therefore,  this  is  one 
of  those  palmary  passages  of  Holy  Writ,  which 
should  be  engraved  on  every  instructed  conscience  as 


WHAT   GOD   REQUIRES.  95 

indelibly  as  by  a  pen  of  iron  upon  the  living  rock. 
It  formulates  the  best  teaching  of  religion ;  it  cor- 
rects the  worst  errors  of  superstition.  Every  book 
of  Scripture,  every  voice  of  Nature,  every  judgment 
of  Conscience  re-echoes  and  confirms  it.  Happy 
will  it  be  for  us,  if  we  will  use  it  as  a  lamp  to  guide 
our  footsteps,  a  law  to  direct  our  life. 

(1)  The  first  answer  is,  Will  Levitical  sacrifices 
suffice.^  "Shall  I  come  before  Him  with  burnt- 
ofierings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  "  that  is,  "  Shall 
I  do  some  outward  act,  or  acts,  to  please  God.?*" 
Men  are  ever  tempted  to  believe  in  this  virtue  of 
doing  something;  to  ask,  as  they  often  asked  our 
Lord,  "What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life .5^" 
And  there  are  times  when  such  external  systems 
may,  for  ignorant  and  stiff-necked  nations,  be  a  wise 
safeguard.  It  was  so  for  the  Israelites  at  the  Exo- 
dus, depressed  and  imbruted  as  they  were  by  long 
slavery,  and  saturated  with  heathen  traditions  of 
cruelty  and  vice.  The  Levitical  institutes, — so  mul- 
tiplex, so  trivial,  so  intricate,  so  material,  so  bur- 
densome,— statutes  which  were  not  good,  and  judg- 
ments whereby  they  could  not  live, — were  best  suited, 
intolerable  as  was  their  yoke,  to  a  people  which  in 
honor  of  their  brute  idol,  could  sit  down  to  eat,  and 


96  WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES. 

to  drink,  and  rise  up  to  play,  while  the  body  of  heaven 
in  its  clearness  had  scarcely  vanished  from  their  eyes, 
and  the  majesty  of  darkness  still  rolled  around 
the  burning  hill.  There  have  been  attempts  in  all 
ages  to  revive  such  ceremonials,  or  others  like  them, 
because  they  are  easier  than  true  holiness,  and  tend 
to  pacify  and  appease  the  perverted  conscience. 
But  God's  own  Word  about  them  is  plain;  they 
perish  in  the  using ;  they  cannot  sanctify  to  the 
purifying  of  the  flesh ;  nay,  in  so  far  as  they  are 
substituted  for  a  heart  religion, — ^in  so  far  as  they 
are  used  to  compound  for  the  weightier  matters 
of  the  law, — in  so  far  as  they  furnish  an  excuse 
for  selfishness,  for  censoriousness,  for  party  spirit, — 
they  are  eminently  displeasing  to  God.  External 
observances,  without  inward  holiness,  are  but  the 
odious  whiteness  of  the  sepulchre.  "Bring  no  more 
vain  oblations,  incense  is  an  abomination  unto  Me," 
saith  God  to  such;  "your  sabbaths  and  calling  of 
assemblies  I  cannot  away  with."  Thousands,  I  sup- 
pose, have  been  asking  themselves  this  Lent,  Need 
we  fast  ?  Yes,  my  brethren,  if  you  think  that  you 
ought ;  and  if  you  know  and  find  that  by  doing  so 
you  increase  your  religious  earnestness,  and  strength- 
en your  moral  life.     But  not  if  you  think  that  fast- 


WHAT    GOD    REQUIRE3.  97 

ing  is  an  end  instead  of  a  means  ;  not  if  it  renders 
you  more  self-satisfied ;  not  if  it  makes  you  less  ac- 
tive in  works  of  good ;  not  if  it  renders  you  less  len- 
ient to  your  own  failings.  "  Eat  an  ox,  and  be  a 
Christian,"  said  the  Jesuit  Fathers  to  a  penitent 
who  could  not  abstain  from  meat.  What  is  the 
passionate,  indignant  language  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah 
on  this  subject  ?  ".Behold,  ye  fast  for  strife  and 
debate,  and  to  smite  with  the  fist  of  wickedness :  is 
it  such  a  fast  that  I  have  chosen.?  to  bow  down  his 
head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to  spread  sackcloth  and  ashes 
under  him  ?  wilt  thou  call  this  a  fast,  and  an  ac- 
ceptable day  to  the  Lord  ?  "  No :  fasting  may  be 
necessary,  only  do  not  take  it  for  religion ; — but,  on 
the  other  hand,  look  at  home  ;  loose  the  bands  of 
wickedness,  your  own  and  others ;  undo  the  heavy 
burdens,  your  own  and  others ;  take  the  beam  out  of 
your  own  eyes;  wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put 
away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  Mine  eyes ; 
cease  to  do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well.  That  is  dearer 
in  God's  eyes  than  perpetual  sacrifice,  holier  and 
'purer  than  days  of  unbroken  fast. 

(2)  If  then  we  cannot  please  God  by  merely 
doing,  can  we  by  giving  1  "Will  the  Lord  be 
pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  and  ten  thousands 


98  WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES. 

of  rivers  of  oil  ?  "  Shall  we  like  the  Pagans  try  to 
bribe  God  ?  Shall  we  make  His  altars  swim  with 
the  blood  of  hecatombs,  and  fill  his  sanctuaries  with 
votive  gold  ?  Or  shall  we,  like  terrified  sinners  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  think  to  buy  ofi"  his  anger  by 
bequeathing  our  possessions  to  charity  or  to  the 
Church  ?  Ah !  my  brethren,  I  suppose  that  while 
not  one  of  us  is  so  ignorant  as  not  to  know  the  duty 
of  charity,  none  of  us  is  so  exquisitely  foolish  as  to 
imagine  that  he  can  by  gifts  win  his  way  one  step 
nearer  to  the  great  White  Throne.  Sacrifices,  to 
bribe  Him  whose  are  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest,  and 
the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills  ?  Gold  or  gems  to 
Him,  before  whom  the  whole  earth,  were  it  one  en- 
tire and  perfect  chrysolite,  would  be  but  as  an  atom 
in  the  sunbeam  ?     Ah,  no ! 

"Vainly  we  offer  each,  ample  qblation; 

Vainly  with  gifts  would  His  favor  implore ; 
Better  by  far  is  the  heart's  adoration, 

Dearer  to  Grod  are  the  prayers  of  the  poor.** 

"  Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it 
Thee,  but  Thou  delightest  not  in  burnt-ofierings. 
The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit ;  a  broken 
and  a  contrite  heart,  0  God,  Thou  wilt  not  despise." 

(3)     If  then  neither  by  doing,  nor  by  giving, 


WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES.  99 

can  we  please  God,  what  third  experiment  shall  we 
try  ?  shall  it  be  by  suffering  1  Shall  I,  lacerating 
my  heart  in  its  tenderest  affections,  give  my  first- 
born for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for 
the  sin  of  my  soul  ?  This,  too,  has  been  frequently 
and  fearfully  attempted;  frequently,  and  fearfully, 
and  more  persistently  than  any  other,  because  in  all 
ages,  and  in  all  nations,  men  have  invested  God 
with  the  attributes  of  terror  and  of  wrath.  Could 
we,  my  brethren,  judge  rightly  of  the  glorious  sun 
in  heaven,  if  we  only  saw  it  glaring  luridly  through 
the' whirled  sands  of  the  desert,  or  dimmed  and  dis- 
torted by  the  hideous  ice-fogs  of  the  North  ?  And 
can  we,  my  brethren,  judge  of  God — the  Sun  of  our 
souls — when  He  looms  dark  and  terrible  through 
the  crimson  mist  of  haunted  consciences  and  guilty 
hearts  ?  No ;  when  men  have  been  able  only  to  thus 
regard  Him,  then  all  the  day  long  His  terrors  have 
they  suffered  with  a  troubled  mind.  He,  the  All- 
loving,  the  All-merciful,  has  seemed  to  them  cruel, 
wrathful,  irresistible,  delighting  in  smoking  victims 
and  streaming  blood.  And  thus  alike  in  sunny 
Greece,  and  stately  Kome,  and  apostatizing  Israel, 
and  scorching  Africa,  and  in  the  far  sweet  islands 
of  the  sea,  to  hideous  emblems  of  some  savage  Deity, 


100  WHAT    GOD   REQUIRES. 

— a  Moloch,  an  Odin,  an  Atua,  a  Sheeva, — in  the 
rushing  stream,  or  the  molten  furnace,  or  on  the 
blade  of  the  consecrated  sword,  has  the  blood  of  man 
been  shed  in  abominable  sacrifice,  or  his  life  robbed 
of  all  health  and  joy  in  horrible  self-torture.  Noth- 
ing seemed  too  sanguinary  or  revolting  to  appease 
the  sense  of  sin,  or  dim  the  glare  of  awakened  wrath. 

"  Our  sires  knew  well 
The  fitting  course  for  such ;  dark  cells,  dim  lamps, 
A  stone  floor  one  may  writhe  on  like  a  worm, 
No  mossy  pillow  blue  with  violets." 

They  fled  from  the  society  of  their  fellows  to 
vast  wildernesses,  or  desolate  hills,  or  wave-washed 
caverns.  Knowing  their  sin,  not  knowing  their 
Saviour, — ^gazing  in  remorse  and  tears  at  the  splen- 
dors of  Sinai,  not  coming  in  humble  penitence  to 
the  Cross  of  Calvary, — life  became  to  them  an  in- 
tolerable fear.  When  a  man  feels  that  the  eye  of 
God  is  fixed  upon  him  in  anger,  and  knows  not 
how  to  escape,  then  no  mountain  seems  too  heavy, 
no  sea  too  deep,  no  solitude  too  undisturbed.  He 
says  with  the  poet, 

"  Place  me  alone  in  some  frail  boat 
Mid  th'  horrors  of  an  angry  sea, 
Where  I,  while  time  may  move,  shall  float 
Despairing  either  land  or  day. 


'    WHAT   GOD    REQUIRES.  101 

Or  under  earth  my  youth  confine 

To  the  night  and  silence  of  a  cell, 
Where  scorpions  round  my  limbs  may  twine, — 

Oh  Grod  I  so  thus  forgive  me  Hell." 

But  has  any  man  ever  found  these  sufferings 
sufficient  ?  Has  any  man.  ever  testified  that  he 
found  forgiveness  through  voluntary  torture  ?  Or  is 
not  that  true  which  is  said  of  the  prophets  of  Baal, 
"  They  leaped  upon  the  altar,  and  cried  aloud,  and 
cut  themselves  after  their  manner.  And  it  came  to 
pass  that  there  was  neither  voice,  nor  any  to  answer, 
nor  any  that  regarded  ?  " 

(4)  Not  then  by  doing,  not  by  giving,  not  by 
Buffering  may  we  come  before  the  Lord,  or  bow  our- 
selves before  the  most  high  God.  Oh !  if  we  could 
thus  be  at  peace  with  Him,  who  would  not  be  doing 
incessantly, who  would  not  give  all  that  he  has,  who 
would  not  cheerfully  suffer,  as  never  martyr  suffered 
yet  ?  Yet  let  us  not  imagine  that  if  men  have 
acted  thus  in  sincerity,  it  will  all  have  been  in  vain. 
No,  let  us  take  comfort,  knowing  that  God  is  love. 
Though  not  by  any  number  of  formal  actions  can 
we  enter  into  eternal  life,  yet  no  work  done  from  a 
right  motive,  however  erroneous,  can  be  the  fruit  of 
an  utterly  corrupted  tree.  Though  no  self-inflicted 
anguish  can  be  acceptable  to   God,  yet  "agonies 


»>^. 


/^^  01  THH     ^^ 

fiririVBRSITT 


102  WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES. 

of  pain  and  blood  shed  in  rivers  are  better  than 
the  soul  spotted  and  bewildered  with  mortal  sin." 
Though  no  giving  shall  purchase  interest  in  heaven, 
yet  the  poorest  and  slightest  act  which  has  sprung 
from  a  true  charity, — the  kindly  word  spoken  in 
Christ's  name,  the  cup  of  cold  water  given  for  His 
sake, — shall  not  miss  its  reward.  You  may  remem- 
ber how,  in  the  old  legend,  St.  Brendan,  in  his 
northward  voyage,  saw  a  man  sitting  upon  an  ice- 
berg, and  with  horror  recognized  him  to  be  the 
traitor  Judas  Iscariot ;  and  the  traitor  told  him  how, 
at  Christmas  time,  amid  the  drench  of  the  burning 
lake,  an  angel  had  touched  his  arm,  and  bidden  him 
for  one  hour  to  cool  his  agony  on  an  iceberg  in  the 
Arctic  sea;  and  when  he  asked  the  cause  of  this 
mercy,  bade  him  recognize  in  him  a  leper  to  whom 
in  Joppa  streets  he  had  given  a  cloak  to  shelter  him 
from  the  wind,  and  how  for  that  one  kind  deed  this 
respite  was  allotted  him.  Let  us  reject  the  ghastly 
side  of  the  legend,  and  accept  its  truth.  Yes,  char- 
ity— love  to  God  as  shewn  in  love  to  man — ^is  better 
than  all  burnt-offering  and  sacrifice.  Yet  if  we 
condemn  the  errors  of  other  ages  in  their  mode  of 
approaching  God,  let  us  at  the  same  time  humbly 
remember  that,  better  had  we  be  at  ceremonials  all 


WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES.  103 

day  long, — better  be  giving  in  the  most  mercenary 
spirit  of  self-interest, — ^better  even  be  a  Moloch  wor- 
shipper, drowning  with  drums  the  cries  of  his  little 
infant  as  he  passes  it  through  the  fire, — than  to  be 
a  Christian  living,  as  alas!  so  many  live,  without 
God  in  the  world ;  living  in  pride,  fulness  of  bread, 
abundance  of  idleness ;  living,  while  they  are  unjust, 
unmerciful,  uncharitable,  unholy,  in  self-satisfied 
Pharisaism,  in  gluttonous  indifference,  in  sensual 
ease. 

Yet  if  all  these  be  at  the  best  but  unacceptable 
ways,  what  is  the  true  way  of  pleasing  God  ?  If  not 
by  doing,  not  by  giving,  not  by  sufiering,  then  how  ? 
What  is  the  Prophet's  answer  ?  My  brethren,  by 
being,  "  He  hath  shewed  thee,  0  man,  what  is 
good ;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but 
to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God  ?  "  Not  once  or  twice  only  in  Scripture 
are  we  taught  the  same  great  lesson.  "Behold," 
said  Samuel  to  the  presumptuous  king,  "  behold,  to 
obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the 
fat  of  rams."  "  I  spake  not  to  your  fathers  concern- 
ing burnt-ofierings,"  said  Jeremiah,  "  but  this  thing 
commanded  I  them.  Obey  my  voice."  Four  times 
over, — thrice  to  the  murmuring  Pharisees,  once  to 


104  WHAT   GOD    REQUIRES. 

the  inquiring  Scribe  who  was  not  far  from  the  king- 
dom of  heaven— did  our  Lord  expressly  sanction  the 
same  high  principle.  By  being  then  shall  we  please 
God  ;  but  by  being  what  ?  By  being  correct  in  the 
pronunciation  of  half-a-dozen  shibboleths  ?  By 
being  diligent  in  a  few  observances  ?  By  fasting  ? 
By  attending  Church  services  ?  By  saying  "  Lord, 
Lord,"  when,  all  the  while,  the  heart  is  unsanctified, 
the  lips  uncharitable,  the  passions  unsubdued  ?  No, 
my  brethren,  no  a  thousand  times ;  but  by  being 
just,  and  merciful,  and  humble  before  our  God.  It 
is  the  answer  of  all  the  Prophets,  it  is  the  answer  of 
all  the  Apostles,  it  is  the  answer  of  Christ  Himself 
Justice  that  shall  hate  the  wicked  balances, — -justice 
that  shall  recoil  from  oppression  and  violence, — jus- 
tice that  shall  loathe  the  small  vices  of  gossip,  scan- 
dal, and  spite : — ^mercy  that  shall  make  us  careful 

"  Never  to  mix  our  pleasures  or  our  pride 
With,  anguish  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels ;  " 

mercy  that  shall  cherish  for  every  sorrow  which  can 
be  alleviated,  and  every  pang  that  can  be  assuaged, 
a  divine,  trembling,  self-sacrificing  love ;  mercy 
which,  looking  neither  to  be  admired,  nor  honored, 
nor  loved,  shall  live  for  the  good  of  others,  not  its 
own  ; — and  lastly,  a  humble  reverence  towards  God, 


WHAT    GOD    REQUIRES.  105 

which  shall  be  the  source  alike  of  that  high  justice, 
and  that  heavenly  mercy, — oh  this  is  what  G.od 
requires,  and  thus  alone  can  we  live  acceptably  to 
Him.  Yea,  acceptably  ;  for  this  is  to  live  in  Christ. 
In  Him  was  justice  fulfilled;  in  Him  was  mercy 
consummated ;  in  Him  was  such  humility  of  rever- 
ence towards  His  heavenly  Father  that,  alike  on  the 
hills  of  Galilee,  and  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane, 
we  see  Him  absorbed  in  constant  prayer.  Oh !  my 
brethren,  God  needs  not  our  services ;  He  needs  not 
our  formulae ;  He  needs  not  our  gifts ;  least  of  all 
does  He  need  our  anguish ;  but  He  needs  as,  our 
hearts,  our  lives,  our  love ;  He  needs  it,  and  even 
this  He  gives  us ;  shedding  abroad  the  spirit  of 
adoption  in  our  hearts.  If  we  resist  not  that  Spirit 
we  need  no  longer  be  what  we  are ;  no  longer  what 
we  have  been.  All  meanness  and  malice,  all  deceit- 
fulness  and  fraud,  all  injustice  and  insolence,  all 
Pharisaism  and  uncharity,  all  worldliness  and  lust 
will  fall  away  from  us,  and  we  shall  be  clothed,  as 
with  a  wedding  garment  which  Christ  shall  give, 
with  justice,  and  humanity,  and  purity,  and  love. 
Oh !  if  we  would  indeed  know  how  to  serve  Him 
aright,  let  us  put  away  all  idle  follies  and  fancies  of 
Dur  own ;  and  seating  ourselves  humbly  at  his  feet, 


106  WHAT   GOD   REQUIRES. 

amid  those  poor  and  ignorant  multitudes  who  sat 
listening  to  Him  among  the  mountain  lilies,  let  us 
learn  the  spirit  of  his  own  beatitudes — Blessed  are 
the  meek  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth;  blessed  are 
the  merciful  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy;  blessed  are 
they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness  for 
they  shall  be  filled. 


V. 

AVOIDANCE  OF  TEMPTATION. 


Then  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  the  holy  City,  and  setteth 
Him  on  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  and  saith  unto  Him,  If  Thou 
be  the  Son  of  God,  cast  thyself  down :  for  it  is  written,  He 
shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee :  and  in  their 
hands  they  shall  bear  Thee  up,  lest  at  any  time  Thou  dash 
Thy  foot  against  a  stone.  Jesus  said  unto  him.  It  is  written 
again.  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God. — Matthew 
iv.  5-7.  * 


This  which  is  the  second  temptation  in  St. 
Matthew  is,  as  you  are  aware,  the  third  in  St.  Luke. 
It  may  be  that  the  younger  Evangelist,  looking 
upon  it  as  a  temptation  subtler  and  more  perilous 
than  any  which  could  come  from  earthly  splendor, 
regarded  it  as  the  last  because  it  was  the  deadliest 
assault.  But  the  fact  that  St.  Matthew  alone  gives 
us  definite  notes  of  sequence, — the  fact  that,  as  an 
actual  Apostle,  he  is  more  likely  to  have  heard  the 
narrative  from  the  lips  of  Christ  Himself, — the  fact 
that  the  recorded  words,    "Get   thee   behind   Me, 

*  A  Lent  Sermon,  preached  in  Hereford  Cathedral,  March  7,  1873. 

(107) 


108  AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION. 

Satan/'  seem  to  be  the  natural  conclusion  of  the 
entire  temptation,  render  it  all  but  certain  that  the 
order  of  the  actual  temptation  was  that  which  the 
first  Evangelist  adopts. 

Nor  is  this  all ;  for  there  is  also  in  this  order  an 
inherent  fitness,  a  divine  probability.  It  represents, 
on  the  part  of  the  tempter,  a  Satanic  subtlety-  of 
insight,  which  the  acutest  human  intellect  could 
hardly  have  invented.  For  our  Saviour  had  foiled 
the  first  temptation  by  an  expression  of  absolute 
trust  in  God.  Not  even  the  pangs  of  famine  in  the 
howling  wilderness  would  tempt  Him  one  step  aside 
from  the  perfect  confidence  that  His  heavenly 
Father  could,  and,  in  His  own  time,  would  prepare 
for  Him  a  table  in  the  wilderness.  Adapting  him- 
self therefore  with  serpent  cunning  to  this  discov- 
ered mood  of  the  Saviour's  mind, — breathing  a  sug- 
gestion which  must  seem  but  the  natural  sequel  of 
that  triumphant  faith, — the  tempter  challenges  this 
perfect  trust,  not  to  gratify  an  immediate  need,  but 
apparently  to  avert  an  immediate  peril.  There  is 
no  stain  of  egotism,  no  impatience  of  sufiering,  in 
the  present  temptation.  Transformed  therein  into 
an  angel  of  light,  the  tempter  breathed  his  insidious 
suggestion  as  a  sublime  victory  of  Messianic  power, 


AVOIDANCE   OF    TEMPTATION.  109 

a  striking  illustration  of  sovereign  faith.  Transport* 
ing  the  Saviour  to  the  Holy  City,  where 

"  The  glorious  temple  reared 
His  pile  far  off, — appearing  like  a  mount 
Of  alabaster,  tipped  with  golden  spires," 

the  tempter  set  Him  not  on  a — ^but  as  it  should  be 
more  accurately  rendered— on  the — on  the  topmost 
pinnacle.  Probably  it  was  the  summit  of  that  Stoa 
Basilik^,  or  Royal  Porch,  which  towered  over  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  magnificent  mass.  At 
this  point  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  surmount  a  rocky 
and  elevated  platform ;  and  as  the  porch  itself  was 
of  stupendous  height,  we  are  told  by  the  Jewish 
historian,  no  one  could  gaze  down  from  it  into  the 
sheer  descent  of  the  ravine  below  without  his  brain 
growing  giddy  at  the  yawning  depth  of  the  abyss. 

"If  thou  be  the  Son  of  God;" — again  that 
whispered  doubt  as  though  to  challenge  Him  through 
spiritual  pride  into  an  indignant  exercise  of  His 
miraculous  power, — "  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God, 
cast  Thyself  down."  Is  not  this  Thy  Temple,  this 
Thy  Father's  house.?  Here  the  prophets  prophe 
sied  about  Thee ;  here  Anna  and  Simeon  took  Thee 
in  their  arms  ;  here,  while  yet  a  boy.  Thou  didst 
amaze  by  Thy  wisdom  the  teachers  of  Thy  people. 


110  AVOIDANCE    OF    TEMPTATION. 

And  here,  save  Thyself,  or,  if  not  save,  at  least 
assert  Thyself  by  the  splendor  of  miracle,  in  the 
majesty  of  faith.  Give  to  every  passer  in  the  valley 
a  sign  from  Heaven.  Flash  down,  like  a  star  from 
the  zenith,  amid  the  astonished  populace.  Art 
Thou  afraid  ?  Nay,  for — (and  here  mark  how  well 
the  devil  can  quote  Scripture  for  his  purpose,  and 
set  the  fatal  example  so  greedily  followed,  of  isola- 
ting, perverting,  distorting  Holy  Writ) — for  "He 
shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee :  and 
in  their  hands  they  shall  bear  Thee  up,  lest  at  any 
time  Thou  dash  Thy  foot  against  a  stone." 

So  deadly  subtle,  so  speciously  plausible,  was 
this  second  temptation.  There  was  nothing  vulgar 
in  it,  nothing  selfish,  nothing  sensuous.  It  seemed 
all  spiritual ;  and  oh !  to  how  many  a  Pharisee,  and 
Keformer,  and  Saint,  have  such  and  similar  tempta- 
tions proved  a  fatal  snare  !  But  calm,  spontaneous, 
deep  with  warning,  came  the  simple  answer,  "  It  is 
written  again.  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy 
God !  "  The  word  in  the  original  is  yet  stronger, — 
it  is,  ovK  EKTreipdaeig,  thou  shalt  uot  tempt  to  the  full, 
thou  shalt  not  challenge  to  the  extreme — ^the  Lord 
thy  God  ;  thou  shalt  not  wantonly  experiment  upon 
the   depth   of  His   pity,  or  the   infinitude   of  His 


AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION.  Ill 

power.  When  thou  art  doing  thy  duty,  then,  trust 
Him  to  the  uttermost  with  a  perfect  confidence; 
but  let  no  seductive  whisper  thrust  thee  into  sui- 
cidal irreverence  in  thy  demand  for  aid.  Thus,  to 
add  the  words  omitted  by  the  tempter,  shalt  thou 
be  safe  in  all  thy  ways : 

"  Also,  it  is  written 
Tempt  not  the  Lord  thy  God :  He  said  and  stood ; 
But  Satan — smitten  by  amazement — fell." 

Now  no  one,  I  suppose,  can  ever  have  meditated 
even  superficially  on  the  Temptation  in  the  Wilder- 
ness, without  feeling  its  many-sided  and  searching 
applicability;  and  though,  at  the  first  glance,  this 
second  temptation  may  seem  merely  to  involve  a 
spiritual  pride,  which,  if  not  uncommon,  is  yet  far 
from  universal,  I  think  that  if  we  look  at  it  a  little 
more  closely  in  humble  simplicity,  we  shall,  on  the 
contrary,  find  it  full  of  warning  to  the  youngest,  no 
less  than  to  the  oldest,  to  the  worst  sinner  no  less 
than  to  the  loftiest  saint. 

The  key  to  its  meaning  lies  surely  in  the  answer 
of  our  Lord.  It  is  an  allusion  to  the  Book  of  Deu- 
teronomy, "  Ye  shall  not  tempt  the  Lord  your  God, 
as  ye  tempted  Him  at  Massah.''  And  how  had  the 
children  of  Israel  tempted  God  at  Massah?     They 


112  AVOIDANCE    OF    TEMPTATION. 

were  in  the  wilderness,  and  in  lack  of  water ;  but 
hitherto  God  had  guided,  had  fed,  had  loved  them ; 
for  them  He  had  smitten  the  parted  sea  ;  for  them 
empearled  with  manna  the  barren  waste ;  for  them 

"  By  day  along  the  astonished  lands 

The  clouded  pillar  glided  slow,  ' 

By  night  Arabia's  crimsoned  sands 
Returned  the  fiery  column's  glow." 

And  could  they  then,  indeed,  suppose  that  God 
would  desert  them  there  to  die  of  thirst  ?  What 
did  they  need  but  a  little  calm  faith,  a  little  patient 
trustfulness,  a  little  obedient  hope,  and  then  assur- 
edly for  them  should  the  wilderness  have  rippled 
with  living  waves  ?  But  what  did  they  do  ?  They 
broke  into  angry  murmurs;  they  clamored  with 
self-willed  indignation ;  they  demanded  as  a  right 
the  smiting  of  the  stony  rock.  This  was  emphatic- 
ally to  tempt  the  Lord.  It  was  at  once  presump- 
tion and  distrust,  distrust  of  God's  ordinary  Provi- 
dence, presumption  of  His  miraculous  aid.  It  was 
neither  faith,  nor  submission,  nor  hope ;  it  was 
rebellion — it  was  sin. 

1.  Are  we,  then,  never  liable  to  tempt  the  Lord 
our  God,  as  Israel  tempted  Him  in  the  wilderness, 
as  Christ  refused  to  tempt  Him  on  the  Temple  pin- 


AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION.  113 

nacle  ?  Yes,  in  many  ways.  Christ  would  not  cast 
Himself  down,  because  He  respected,  as  the  laws  of 
His  Father,  the  laws  of  nature ;  and  to  cast  Him- 
self down  would  have  been  to  brave  and  to  violate 
them.  Now,  we  too,  by  our  knowledge  of  those 
laws,  by  study  of  them,  by  obedience  to  them,  are 
placed  as  it  were  upon  a  pinnacle  of  the  Temple, — 
on  a  pinnacle  of  that  vast  Cathedral  of  the  Omnipo- 
tent, whose  azure  dome  is  the  vault  of  heaven,  and 
the  stars  its  cresset  lamps.  Consider  the  supremacy 
of  man  in  nature.  For  us  are  fire  and  hail,  snow 
and  vapor,  wind  and  storm ;  for  us  are  the  glorious 
voices  of  the  mountain  and  t*he  sea ;  for  us  the  shell 
upon  the  sand  has  its  rosy  beauty,  and  the  moon  in 
heaven  her  silvery  light.  And  look  what  man  has 
done !  How  he  has  made  the  very  elements  minister 
to  his  happiness,  and  decrease  his  toil,— how  he  has, 
as  it  were,  seized  the  very  lightning  by  its  wing  of 
fire,  and  bidden  it  flash  his  messages  through  the 
heart  of  mighty  mountains,  and  the  bosom  of  raging 
seas.  But  how.?  By  exact  obedience  to  the  laivs 
of  nature,  never  by  insolent  violation  of  them. 
"  The  water  drowns  ship  and  sailor  like  a  grain  of 
dust;  but  trim  your  bark,  and  the  wave  which 
drowned  it  will  be  cloven  by  it,  and  carry  it  like  its 
8 


114  AVOIDANCE    OF    TEMPTATION. 

own  foam,  a  plume  and  a  power."  '■*  But  is  there 
no  moral  lesson  for  us  here  ?  Aye,  and  a  deep  one  : 
for  the  Book  of  Nature  is  also  the  Book  of  God,  and 
the  Voice  of  Nature  the  Voice  of  God  ;  and  the 
history  of.  man,  and  the  life  of  man,  would  have 
been  very  different,  if — instead  of  neglecting  that 
Book,  being  deaf  to  that  Voice,  violating  those 
Laws,  and  so  flinging  himself  down  from  that  Tem- 
ple pinnacle,  whereon  his  feet  are  set — he  had  in  all 
respects  and  in  all  ages  humbly  and  faithfully 
striven  to  understand  and  to  obey.  Half  of  the 
peace  and  prosperity  of  nations,  half  of  the  health 
and  happiness  of  man,  half  even  of  the  serenity  and 
security  of  moral  life,  depend  on  this.  For  pain, 
mutilation,  disease,  death  —  these  are  the  stem, 
instant,  inexorable  penalties  affixed  by  nature  to 
every  violation  of  every  law.  Drop  a  spark  near  a 
magazine,  and  a  city  may  be  shattered  ;  let  hot 
ashes  fall  in  a  prairie,  and  a  province  may  be  devas- 
tated. The  germs  of  diseases  the  most  virulent, 
which  spread  dismay  and  disaster  through  nations 
and  continents,  lurk  in  the  neglected  cottage,  and 
the  stagnant  pool.  And,  as  you  all  know,  these  laws 
have  a  direct  bearing  on  the  individual  life  of  man. 

*  Emerson,  The  Conduct  of  Life. 


AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION.  115 

By  obedience  to  their  beneficent  indication  can  we 
alone  preserve  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body.  He 
who  would  live  to  a  green  old  age  in  purity  and 
honor, — he  who  would  "  account  himself  both  a  fit 
person  to  do  the  noblest  and  most  glorious  deeds, 
and  far  better  worth  than  to  deject  and  to  defile 
with  such  a  pollution  as  sin  is,  himself  so  highly 
ransomed  and  ennobled  to  a  filial  relationship  with 
God," — ^he  who  would  not  lay  waste  the  inner  sanc- 
tities of  his  own  immortal  nature,  or  lie  down  in  the 
dust  with  his  bones  full  of  the  sin  of  his  youth, — he 
must  regard  the  laws  of  nature  as  a  voice  behind 
him,  saying,  "  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,"  when 
he  would  turn  aside  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left. 
And  then,  indeed,  he  may  feel  that  God's  angels 
shall  guard  him  in  all  his  ways.     Never  will  he 

"  With  unbashful  forehead  woo 
The  means  of  sickness  and  debility." 

The  sudden  terror,  the  pestilence  of  darkness,  the 
arrow  of  noonday  shall  have  no  dread  for  him.  Or 
if  he  sufier,  he  will  calmly  and  cheerfully  accept 
such  suffering  as  a  part  of  God's  providence  for  his 
mortal  life,  knowing  that  any  suffering  encountered 
for  the  sake  of  duty  with  unflinching  courage,  en- 
dured for  the  sake  of  duty  with  perfect  trust,  is  only 


116  AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION. 

less  noble  than  martyrdom  itself.  It  is  related  of  one 
of  the  bravest  of  our  kings — a  king  who,  in  many  a 
hard  fight,  when  horses  were  shot  under  him  and 
bullets  tore  his  clothes,  exulted  with  a  serene  and 
imperturbable  courage, — that  he  had  yet  a  deep  con- 
tempt for  foolhardiness  and  neglect.  "What  do 
you  do  here  ?  "  he  once  asked  sternly  and  angrily, 
of  a  gentleman  who  had  come  to  witness  a  battle. 
"  Do  you  not  see  the  danger  you  are  in  ?"  "  Not 
in  greater  danger  than  your  Majesty,"  was  the  reply. 
"  Yes,"  answered  the  king,  "  but  I  am  here  in  the 
path  of  duty,  and  therefore  may  trust  my  life  in 
God's  care;  but  you — "  .  .  .  before  the  sentence 
could  be  finished  a  cannon-ball  laid  the  rash  intruder 
dead  at  the  unharmed  monarch's  feet. 

2.  Again,  hy  our  spiritual  and  moral  privileges, 
no  less  than  by  the  laws  of  nature,  we  stand  as  it 
were  upon  the  pinnacle  of  the  Temple.  Consider 
our  lofty  privileges.  We  are,  every  one  of  us,  mem- 
bers  of  Christ,  children  of  God,  inheritors  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  In  infancy  the  Cross  was  signed 
upon  our  foreheads;,  in  youth  we  were  taught  at 
Christ's  school ;  in  manhood  the  deepest  and  richest 
ordinances  of  a  free  and  unpersecuted  religion  wei'e 
placed  wholly  within  our  reach.     How  many  by  such 


AVOIDANCE   OF    TEMPTATION.  117 

privileges  as  these  have  been  tempted  to  their  own 
destruction  !  "  Admitted  into  the  holier  sanctuary 
they  have  but  been  guilty  of  the  deeper  sacrilege ; 
standing  in  the  brighter  radiance  they  have  but 
flung  the  deeper  shadow."  How  many,  even  in  the 
early  Church,  cast  themselves  down  at  the  tempter's 
bidding  into  the  gulf  of  Antinomianism  ;  how  many 
in  all  ages  have  imagined  that  they  in  particular 
need  not  be  guided  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  moral 
law.  How  is  all  such  pride  rebuked,  how  is  the  eter- 
nal majesty  and  grandeur  of  the  moral  law  asserted, 
by  Christ's  calm  answer,  "  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the 
Lord  thy  God."  As  long,  indeed,  as  we  stand  firm 
where  His  Providence  hath  set  our  feet  we  are  secure. 
"  He  shall  defend  thee  under  His  wings,  and  thou 
shalt  be  safe  under  His  feathers ;  His  righteousness 
and  truth  shall  be  thy  shield  and  buckler."  Daniel 
when  he  prayed  thrice  a  day  looking  towards  Jeru- 
salem was  but  doing  what  he  had  ever  done,  and 
therefore  for  him  the  lions'  mouths  were  sealed. 
The  three  children  were  but  resisting  unsought 
temptation,  when  they  were  dragged  before  the  gold- 
en image,  and  flung  into  the  burning  flame,  and 
therefore  for  them  the  Spirit  of  God  breathed  like 
"  a  moist  whistling:  wind  "  amid  the  fire.     But,  op 


118  AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION. 

ihe  other  hand,  when  the  early  Christians  thrust 
themselves  presumptuously  and  insolently  into  the 
peril  of  martyrdom,  how  often  did  "the  flaniinoj 
inspirations  of  idealist  valor  "  sink  shamefully  undei 
the  rude  shock  of  reality.  And  the  fall  of  many  of 
them  was  more  terribly  shameful,  when  they  put 
themselves  with  reckless  self-confidence  in  the  way 
of  moral  temptations.  As  long  as  men  watch  and 
pray,  and  use  the  ordinary  means  of  safety  furnished 
by  God's  grace,  so  long  they  are  safe ;  but  when  they 
despise  those  ordinances,  how  utter  may  be  their 
ruin !  When  Lot,  in  his  greed  for  gold,  was  willing 
to  exchange  his  nomad  tent  for  the  foul  city's  wicked 
streets,  how  in  the  shipwreck  of  all  he  had  and  all 
he  loved, — ^how  in  the  earthquake-shattered  city,  and 
the  lightning-riven  plain, — ^how  in  the  putrescent 
scum  and  glistening  slime  of  that  salt  and  bitter 
sea,  which  rolled  its  bituminous  horror  where  his 
garden-pastures  had  smiled  before, — ^how,  I  say,  did 
he  learn  that  God  means  even  the  most  innocent- 
hearted  to  keep  far  away  from  sin !  When  Dinah 
walked  forth  to  see  the  daughters  of  the  land,  and 
returned  to  bitterness  and  bloodshed,  with  rent  veil 
and  dishevelled  hair ; — when  Peter  followed  into  the 
High  Priest's  palace,  and  was  startled  by  sneering 


AVOIDANCE    OF    TEMPTATION.  119 

questions  to  deny  with  shameless  curses  the  Lord  he 
loved, — how  in  their  moral  feebleness,  how  in  their 
sudden  retribution,  do  they  illustrate  the  great  sin 
and  folly  of  rushing  into  danger's  way !  Yes  !  the 
devil  tempts  us  when  he  thrusts  sin  before  us,  but, 
when  we  approach  it  of  our  own  selves,  it  is  then  we 
who  tempt  the  devil;  and  "  Lead  us  not  into  temp- 
tation "  is  a  prayer  which  will  not  be  heard  from  the 
lips  of  him  who  makes  no  effort  to  avoid  it.  He 
who  walks  humbly,  prayerfully,  watchfully,  on  the 
path  of  quiet  duty,  may  indeed  meet  with  danger  ; 
but  if  so,  firmly  holding  the  hand  of  God, — un- 
shaken, unseduced,  unterrified, — he  shall  tread  upon 
the  lion  and  adder,  the  young  lion  and  the  dragon  shall 
he  trample  under  feet.  But  he  who  dallies  with 
temptation,  he  who  tampers  with  evil,  is  never  safe. 
People  say  that  such  and  such  a  man  had  a  sudden 
fall ;  but  no  fall  is  sudden.  In  every  instance  the 
crisis  of  th^  moment  is  decided  only  by  the  tenor  of 
the  life ;  nor,  since  this  world  began,  has  any  man 
been  dragged  ever  into  the  domain  of  evil,  who  had 
not  strayed  carelessly,  or  gazed  curiously,  or  lingered 
guiltily,  beside  its  verge. 

3.     Once  more  and  lastly,  and  this  is  a  point 
which   nearly   affects  us   all,   independently  of  all 


120  AVOIDANCE   OF    TEMPTATION. 

spiritual  privileges,  independently  of  God's  inesti- 
mable love  in  the  redemption  of  the  world  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  are  set  as  it  were  upon  a 
pinnacle  of  the  Temple,  by  the  mere  grandeur  and 
loftiness  of  our  being,  by  the  freedom  of  our  wills, 
by  the  immortality  of  our  souls,  by  the  glory  and 
honor,  a  little  lover  than  the  angels,  wherewith 
God  has  crowned  our  race.  And  how  often,  alas  1 
and  how  fearfully,  do  men  fling  themselves  down 
from  this  glory  and  grandeur,  into  the  abyss  I 

"  Ah  deeper  dole  I 
That  so  august  a  spirit,  shrined  so  fair, 
Should,  from  the  starry  session  of  his  peers, 
Decline  to  quench  so  bright  a  brilliance 
In  Hell's  sick  spume  ; — ah  me  the  deeper  dole ! " 

For,  indeed,  by  every  sin, — above  all  by  every  wil- 
ful, by  every  deliberate,  by  every  habitual  sin, — we 
do  fling  ourselves  from  our  high  station  down  into 
shame  and  degradation,  into  guilt  and  fear,  into 
fiery  retribution  and,  it  may  be,  final  loss.  And 
yet,  how  many  talk  in  these  days  as  though  to  sin 
were  no  great  harm ;  as  though  the  sins  of  youth, 
for  instance,  were  all  venial,  and  it  were  rather  a 
better  thing  than  otherwise  for  a  young  man  to 
sow,  as  they  call  it,  his  wild  oats !  But  yet,  though 
man  deceive  himself  and  be   deceived — though  the 


AVOIDANCE    OF    TEMPTATION.  121 

tables  of  the  Moral  Law,  even  ere  they  were  pro- 
mulgated, were  shattered  to  pieces  on  the  mountain 
granite — the  Moral  Law  remains  in  its  eternal  maj- 
esty, and  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  every  living 
man,  louder  than  amid  the  thunder-echoing  crags 
of  Sinai,  " God  spake  these  words  and  said"  So 
that  every  violation  of  God's  law  is  to  fling  our- 
selves down  from  the  Temple  pinnacle  into  the  foul 
and  dark  ravine  ; — ^it  is  to  see  whether  man's  inso- 
lent rebellion  shall  not  triumph  over  God's  immuta- 
ble designs. 

And  to  what  do  men  trust,  to  what  alas !  do 
we  trust  when  we  act  thus  ?  Is  it  not  to  the  lying 
whisper  that  God  will  give  His  angels  charge  over 
us,  and  that,  whatever  we  do,  we  shall  still  be  saved  ? 
But  oh,  we  cannot  learn  too  early  that  stern  lesson 
of  St.  Augustine's  that  though  God  hath  indeed 
promised  forgiveness  to  those  who  repent,  He  hath  not 
promised  repentance  to  those  who  sin.  We  cannot 
convince  ourselves  too  absolutely,  that,  if  we  sin, 
God  will  work  no  miracle  for  our  deliverance.  Peo- 
ple talk  of  time  producing  a  change  in  them ;  but 
time  is  no  agent,  and  can  lend  no  aid.  And  thus, 
more  men  destroy  themselves  by  hope  than  by  de- 
spair ;   by  the  hope  that  is — the  vague,  vain,  idle 


122  AVOIDANCE   OF    TEMPTATION. 

hope, — that  they  will  some  day  be  saved,  than  by 
the  despairing  conviction  that  they  never  can  be 
saved.  It  has  been  often  said  that  "  hell  is  paved 
with  good  intentions  ; "  it  would  be  far  more  true 
to  say  that  hell  is  paved  with  idle  hopes.  Century 
after  century  has  the  tempter  been  whispering  to 
myriads  and  myriads  of  human  souls,  "  Cast  thyself 
boldly  down.  Yea,  hath  God  said  ? — ^Fear  not ! 
Thou  shalt  not  surely  die.  Thou  shalt  enjoy  the 
sweetness  Oi  the  sin,  and  shalt  escape — for  God  is 
merciful — the  bitterness  of  the  punishment."  And 
yes,  my  brethren,  God  is  merciful;  but  shall  we 
make  His  mercy  an  excuse  for  our  own  wickedness, 
or  pervert  His  love  into  an  engine  for  our  own  de- 
struction.? Did  our  first  parents,  did  any  of  all 
their  millions  of  descendants  in  all  ages,  ever  find 
that  whisper  true  ?  In  the  lost  Paradise,  in  the 
crushing  shame,  in  the  horror  at  God's  presence, 
in  the  waving  barrier  of  fire  about  the  Tree  of  Life, 
in  the  son  who  was  murdered,  in  the  son  who  was  a 
murderer,  in  the  ruin,  and  angi^ish,  and  degradation 
that  burst  in  like  a  flood  upon  their  race, — did  they 
find  that  God  thinks  nothing  of  His  word,  and  does 
not  mean  what  He  has  said.?  And  if  indeed  He 
ioes  not,  what  mean  in  history  the  battles  and  the 


AVOIDANCE   OF   TEMPTATION.  123 

massacres,  and  in  nature  the  earthquake  and  the 
pestilence,  and  in  daily  experience  the  cell  of  the 
lunatic  and  the  grave  of  the  suicide  ?  Do  these 
look  like  "  a  reckless  infinitude  of  mercy,  and  bound- 
less obliteration  of  the  work  of  sin  ?  "  Might  we 
not,  it  has  been  said,  seeing  a  river,  hope  that  it  is 
not  a  river,  and  so  walk  into  it  and  be  drowned,  as 
seeing,  in  all  Scripture,  and  in  all  nature,  judgment 
and  not  mercy  written  down  as  the  penalty  of  im- 
penitent transgression,  "  hope  that  it  is  mercy  and 
not  judgment,  and  so  rush  against  the  bosses  of  the 
Eternal  buckler  as  the  wild  horse  rushes  into  the 
battle?" 

Thus  then,  my  brethren,  if  Satan  tempt  us  to 
cast  ourselves  down  from  that  high  pinnacle,  where- 
on we  are  now  standing, — ^whether  it  be  by  neglect- 
ing the  law  of  Nature,  or  by  presuming  on  the  law 
of  Grace,  or  by  defying  the  law  of  Retribution, — 
we  shall,  if  we  yield  to  that  temptation,  be  yielding 
to  our  own  destruction.  But  to  each  of  such  temp- 
tations we  have  the  true  answer,  "  Thou  shalt  not 
tempt  the  Lord  thy  God."  Trust  Him,  but  tempt 
Him  not.  Trust  Him,  for  thou  art  His  child  ;  and 
if  thou  wilt  love  and  fear  Him,  the  very  hairs  of  thy 
head  are  all  numbered.     In  the  accidents  of  life,  in 


124  AVOIDANCE   OF    TEMPTATION. 

its  dangers,  in  its  difficulties,  in  its  moral  crises,  yea, 
in  the  very  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  trust 
Him ;  but  in  obedience,  not  in  rebellion ;  in  faith, 
not  in  audacity ;  in  humble  patience,  not  in  insolent 
self-will.  So,  but  so  only,  shall  He  give  His  angels 
charge  concerning  thee,  and  in  their  hands  they  shall 
bear  thee  up  lest  at  any  time  thou  dash  thy  foot 
against  a  stone. 


VI. 

THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 


There  hath  no  temptation  taken  you  but  such  as  is  common  to 
man:  but  God  is  faithful,  who  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted 
above  that  ye  are  able ;  but  will  with  the  temptation  also 
make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  bear  it. — 1  CoB. 
X.  13  *  

You  have  just  heard  these  words,  my  brethren, 
in  the  second  lesson  of  this  evening's  service.  They 
form  the  climax  of  a  long  and  memorable  digression 
of  which  the  leading  thought  is  distrust  of  self,  trust 
in  God, — distrust  of  self  as  a  cause  of  watchfulness, 
trust  in  God  as  a  ground  of  hope.  Like  most  of  St. 
Paul's  words,  real  and  burning  words  as  they  always 
are,  they  acquire  a  yet  intenser  significance  from  the 
sequence  of  thought  with  which  they  are  connected. 
He  has  been  speaking  of  his  position  as  an  Apostle, 
and  claiming  his  right  to  be  supported  by  his  evan- 
gelizing work.  But  he  reminds  his  Corinthian 
converts  that  he  had  deliberately  waived  that  right. 

*  Preached  as  a  Farewell  Sermon  in  the  Chapel  of  Harrow 
School  on  the  evening  of  Jan.  29,  1871. 

(125) 


126     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

He  had  followed  that  rarer  and  nobler  course  which 
is  so  hard  to  learn,  and  which  he  urges  so  often  on 
all  Christians,  of  calmly  and  habitually  being  content 
if  need  be,  with  less  than  is  our  due.  And  therefore, 
instead  of  accepting  the  maintenance  to  which  he 
was  so  clearly  entitled  from  the  hands  of  his  con- 
verts, he  had  labored  with  his  own  hands  to  meet 
the  modest  wants  of  a  disciplined  and  simple  life. 
Yet  he  did  not  boast  of  this  great  self-denial ;  he 
had  not  done  it  for  glory,  or  for  gratitude,  but  for 
God.  What  he  had  done  he  could  not  help  doing. 
The  sacred  hunger  for  souls  had  absorbed  his  ener- 
gies ;  the  burning  impulse  of  love  had  swayed  his 
soul;  his  labor  had  been  its  own  reward,  because 
it  had  been  done  for  the  Gospel's  sake,  that  he  and 
they  might  alike  be  partakers  of  its  benefits. 

And  there  for  a  moment  he  pauses.  The  thought 
arrests  his  attention.  You  may  have  sometimes 
watched  a  great  tide  advancing  irresistibly  towards 
the  destined  shore,  yet  broken  and  rippled  over 
every  wave  of  its  sunlit  fretwork,  and  liable  at 
any  momeilt  to  mighty  refluences  as  it  foams  and 
swells  about  opposing  sandbank  or  rocky  cape. 
Such,  as  the  elder  of  you  will  recognize,  is  the  style 
of  St.  Paul.     The  word  "  Gospel,"— the  thought  of 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     127 

sharing  with  them  its  awful  privileges, — arrests  him ; 
he  is  suddenly  startled  at  the  grandeur  of  his  own  mis- 
sion, and  stops  to  warn  them  that  even  he,  their 
teacher, — even  he  called  to  be  an  Apostle, — even  he 
with  all  his  perils  and  labors  and  sacrifices,  needed, 
no  less  than  they  did,  unsparing,  constant,  anxious 
self-discipline,  lest  he  should  become  a  castaway. 
He  reminds  them  that  the  mortification,  the  conflict, 
the  self-mastery  which  were  necessary  for  him  who 
would  wear  heaven's  wreath  of  amaranth,*  were  far 
more  intense  and  continuous  than  the  severe  train- 
ing which  the  young  athletes  of  their  city  must 
undergo  before  they  could  win  those  coveted  and 
fading  garlands  of  Isthmian  pine.  He  reminds  them 
too  of  the  awful  lesson  involved  in  the  history  of 
their  fathers.  They,  by  glorious  privilege,  had  been 
guided  by  the  fiery  pillar,  had  been  baptized  in  the 
parted  sea,  had  quenched  their  thirst  from  the 
cloven  rock, — yet  all  had  been  in  vain.  In  spite  of 
all,  their  hearts  had  lusted  after  evil  things.  Some 
had  committed  fornication  and  fallen  in  one  day 
three  and  twenty  thousand ;  some  had  tempted 
Christ  and  been  destroyed  of  serpents ;  some  had 
murmured  and  been  destroyed  of  the  destroyer.     Oh 

•  1  Cor.  ix.  25.  1  Peter  v.  4.  tov  afiapdvTcvov  rrj^  i^^fJ-Q  ori^avov. 


< 


128  THE   CONQUEST   OVER   TEMPTATION. 

let  them  beware,  for  all  this  dark  and  splendid  his- 
tory was  written  for  their  example.  It  was  no  dim 
revelation  of  God's  will,  no  uncertain  utterance  of 
His  voice.  And  its  lesson  was  "Let  him  that 
thinketh  he  standeth,  take  heed  lest  he  fall."  But 
then,  at  once,  after  those  stern  and  solemn  messages, 

4 

the  heart  of  the  great  apostle  breaks  with  tears. 
fle  yearns  to  comfort  his  children.  "  Why  should 
they — why  need  they  fall  ?  "  The  thought  flashes 
across  his  mind  too  rapidly  for  utterance,  and  leav- 
ing it  unexpressed,  he  continues,  "  There  hath  no 
temptation  taken  you  but  such  as  is  common  to 
man ;  but  God  is  faithful,  who  will  not  suffer  you  to 
be  tempted  above  that  ye  are  able ;  but  will  with 
the  temptation  also  make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye 
may  be  able  to  bear  it." 

At  those  blessed  words,  my  brethren,  we  too  will 
pause.  They  are  words  of  mercy,  of  strength,  of  con- 
fidence, of  comfort.  Yery  gladly  for  a  few  moments 
would  I  dwell  on  them  as  my  last  words  amongst 
you.  Very  earnestly  would  I  pray  to  Almighty 
God,  that,  as  a  savor  of  life  unto  life,  their  meaning 
may  linger  in  our  souls ;  and  that  thereby  we  may 
be  helped  forward  by  God's  grace  on  the  path  of  a 
Christian  life,  feeling  more  peace  amidst  its  troubles. 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     129 

more  courage  under  its  difficulties,  more  hope  amid 
its  failures,  more  joy  as  the  quiet  scene  of  its  many- 
blessings  gleams  forth  under  the  sunlight  of  God's 
approving  smile. 

1.  Mark  first,  my  brethren,  that  St.  Paul  as- 
sumes the  certainty  of  our  encountering  temptation. 
No  life,  not  even  the  life  of  our  Lord  and  Master, 
was  ever  yet  without  it.  That  journey  of  the  Israel- 
ites in  the  desert  to  which  St.  Paul  alludes,  fur- 
nishes a  close  emblem  of  our  own.  Before  each  one 
of  us — a  pillar  of  a  cloud  by  day,  a  pillar  of  fire  by 
night, — glides  visibly  the  protecting  providence  of 
God.  Wonderful  deliverances  are  vouchsafed  to  us. 
Enemies  pursue  us,  and  we  must  fly  from  them. 
Enemies  confront  us,  and  we  must  fight  with  them. 
Vividly  and  distinctly,  loudly  and  intelligibly, — as 
among  the  burning  summits  and  thunder-beaten 
crags  of  Sinai, — blaze  for  us  the  revealing  splen- 
dors, reverberate  for  us  the  majestic  utterances  of 
the  moral  law.  Simple  and  sweet  as  virgin  honey, 
— if  we  will  only  live  thereon, — ^lies  round  us  the 
angels'  food ;  clear  and  crystalline, — if  we  will  but 
drink  thereof, — murmurs  and  shines  about  us  the 
river  of  God's  love.     Yet,  alas !  we  fall  as  Israel  fell. 

Idolaters  like  them,  we  inflame  ourselves  with  idols. 
9 


130  THE    CONQUEST    OVER    TEMPTATIOIT. 

Sensualists  like  them,  we  sigh  for  the  fleshpots  of 
Egypt  among  the  manna-dews  of  heaven.  Thank- 
less as  they,  we  have  heen  discontented  an(^  rebel- 
lious in  the  midst  of  mercies.  The  language  is 
allegorical,  the  fact  is  bitterly  real.  All  of  us  have 
been  tempted ;  many  of  us  have  fallen ;  some  have 
been  overthrown  in  the  wilderness. 

And  these  temptations — these  impulses  from 
without,  these  tendencies  from  within,  to  love  our 
bodies  more  than  our  souls,  our  pleasures  more  than 
our  duties,  ourselves  more  than  our  God, — ^begin, 
alas,  almost  with  our  earliest  years.  The  very 
youngest  boy  who  hears  me,  knows  what  it  is  to  be 
tempted  to  do  wrong, — tempted  to  neglect  known 
duties,  to  utter  wicked  language, — tempted  to  be 
idle,  or  self-indulgent,  or  unholy,  or  unkind.  Ah 
my  brethren,  let  us  not  conceal  it, — let  us  frankly 
acknowledge  the  plain  fact, — ^an  English  Public 
School, — nay,  any  school,  public  or  private,  is,  and 
must  be  a  scene  of  temptation.  That  temptation 
may  vary  in  extent,  in  intensity,  in  deadliness ;  at 
one  time,  in  one  house,  under  one  set  of  circum- 
stances it  may  be  fearfully  virulent ; — under  happier 
influences  it  may  be  comparatively  faint ; — but  it 
will  be  always  there.    It  must  needs  be  that  offences 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     131 

come.  To  one  who  feels  the  sacredness  of  life,  to 
one  who  cares  for  the  souls  of  others,  to  one  who 
can  thrill  with  an  emotion  of  assent  to  that  crush- 
ing indignation  which  "flung  the  desecrator  of 
youthful  innocence  with  a  millstone  round  his  neck 
into  the  sea,"  the  advent  of  a  new  boy  to  a  Public 
School  must  always  cause  anxiety ;  he  must  be  care- 
fully shielded,  gently  watched  over,  wisely,  and,  if 
need  be,  even  solemnly  forewarned.  And  even  then, 
though  many  a  prayer  be  poured  forth  for  him  at 
the  throne  of  grace,  though  hands  firm  and  tender 
be  outstretched  to  upbear  his  stumbling  feet,  nay, 
even  though,  in  the  silent  watches  of  the  night, 
hours  of  sleepless  thought  may  have  been  given  to 
his  welfare,  as  they  have  been  given  by  many  here 
for  many  here, — ^he  may  cause  bitter  disappoint- 
ment, he  may  go  terribly  astray.  My  brethren,  it 
is  not  my  purpose  to  awaken  the  memories  of  the 
past ;  yet,  as  I  look  back  over  a  space  of  more  than 
fifteen  years,  it  is  sadly,-*  solemnly  true,  that  I  have 
known  some  with  whom  God  was  not  well  pleased, 
some  who,  listening  to  the  subtle  whispers  of  temp- 
tation, forsook  the  guide  of  their  youth  to  perish  in 
the  wilderness.  I  mean  not,  God  forbid!  those 
over  whose  young  graves  the  grass  is  green ;  those 


132     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

whom  in  the  midst  of  us  the  voice  of  God  has  call- 
ed, the  finger  of  death  has  touched.  I  knew  indeed 
each  and  all  of  those  whose  names,  from  these  mute 
tablets,  make  to  you  their  touching  and  eloquent 
appeal ;  I  knew  many  others,  whose  names  are  unre- 
corded here,  but  whom, — some  by  the  sharp  stroke  of 
accident,  some  down  the  lingering  declivities  of  dis- 
ease— God,  perhaps  only  because  they  were  so  fit  to 
die,  called  away  to  their  long  home,  nearer  to  their 
heavenly  Father,  nearer  to  their  brother  Christ. 
On  their  vacant  places  we  could  always  gaze  with- 
out a  tear;  but  from  time  to  time  there  have  been 
other  vacant  places  among  you,  not  due  to  death ; 
the  vacant  places  of  those  who  once  were  innocent, 
who  once  were  simple-minded,  who  once  were  up- 
right, but  from  whom,  partly  for  their  own  good, 
partly  for  yours,  it  was  best  that  you  should  sepa- 
rate. And  others  there  have  been  who  have  not  left 
us  in  sorrow ;  but  yet,  if  you  could  call  them  here, 
— if  they  could  show  you  how  their  feet  have  been 
lacerated  by  the  thorns  which  their  own  careless 
hands  sowed  broadcast  on  their  youthful  path, — if 
they  could  reveal  to  you  what  it  is  to  bleed  inwardly 
and  well  nigh  unto  death  with  self-inflicted  wounds, 
— if,  saved  so  as  by  fire,  they  could  make  you  feel 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     133 

beforehand  that  (it  may  be  in  years  long  after)  a 
man  must  possess  and  inherit  the  sins,  aye  and  even 
the  mere  follies  of  his  youth, — then  with  what  em- 
phasis  of  warningy  then  with  what  solemnity  of 
dready  would  you  hear  St.  Paul's  admonition  to  dis- 
trust of  self, — ^would  you  learn  that  your  life  here  is 
to  all  but  the  careful  and  the  prayerful  a  time  of 
danger, — that  it  is  a  wilderness  of  temptation  in 
which  many  fall. 

2.  Yes,  so  much  I  was  forced  to  say;  but  I 
add  eagerly  and  joyfully  that  you  need  not  fall, — 
not  one  of  you  need  fall, — every  one  of  you  may  be- 
come pure,  and  sweet,  and  noble ;  every  one  of  you 
may  die  a  holy  man.  My  subject  is  not  warning, 
but  comfort ;  and  St.  Paul's  comfort  to  those  whom 
he  loved  was  this,  "  There  hath  no  temptation  taken 
you  but  such  as  is  common  to  man."  Perhaps  you 
will  say  that  this  is  no  comfort. 

"  That  loss  is  common  would  not  make 
My  own  less  bitter ;  rather  more ; 
Too  common, — never  evening  wore 
To  morning,  but  some  heart  did  break." 

When  a  ship  is  going  down  in  the  angry  sea,  is  it 
any  comfort  to  the  drowning  struggling  mariner  to 
think  that  all  his  comrades  also, — all  whom  he  has 


134     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

honored,  all  whom  he  has  loved, — are  buffeting 
hopelessly  with  those  overwhelming  waves?  No, 
my  brethren,  the  consolations  of  Scripture  are  not 
like  this ;  but  how  if  we  could  tell  him  that  .though 
some  will  perish,  all  might  escape  ?  How  if  we 
pointed  him  to  the  life-buoy  floating  near  him  on 
the  billows, — to  the  life-boat  straining  towards  him 
through  the  storm  ?  How  if,  without  concealing 
his  peril,  yet  cheering,  aiding,  inspiriting  the  bold 


Courage,  we  cried,  and  pointed  toward  the  land ; 
This  mounting  wave  will  roll  us  shoreward  soon  ? 

Aye  this  is  St.  Paul's  comfort — not  that  our 
temptations  are  common  to  man,  but  they  are  hu- 
man;'--'  that  there  is  nothing  strange,  abnormal,  in- 
superable about  them ;  that  they  are  well  within  the 
scope  of  our  power  to  struggle  with.  If  you  would 
kindle  a  soldier  into  daring  would  you  point  out  to 
him  his  spiritless,  defeated  comrades, — the  victorious 
insulting  foe.^  Would  some  French  general — a 
Chanzy  or  a  Bourbaki, — cheer  on  the  despairing 
armies  of  France  in  the  hour  of  battle  by  telling 
vthem   of  the  retreat  from  Moscow  or  the   rout   at 

*  Greek  avdptjiripog    A.  V.  marg.  "Moderate." 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.      135 

Waterloo  ?  Would  he  not  rather  fire  their  memo- 
ries with  the  heroisms  of  Valmy  and  of  Marengo, 
with  the  glories  of  Jena  and  of  Austerlitz  ?  Would 
he  not  tell  them  how,  exhausted  by  drought  and 
weariness,  their  glorious  fathers  had  shattered  the 
magnificent  chivalry  of  the  Mamelukes  at  the  Pyra- 
mids, and  how,  ragged  and  shoeless,  yet  irresistible, 
they  had  swept  through  the  storm  of  fire  to  hurl  the 
German  artillery  from  the  Bridge  of  Lodi  ?  Even 
so,  in  a  world  of  sin  and  sorrow,  in  a  moral  world 
which  has  its  own  disgraces  and  defeats,  St.  Paul 
would  point  us  not  to  those  sad  pale  multitudes  of 
wasted  and  ruined  lives, — not  to  the  retributive  dis- 
eases of  desecrated  bodies,  or  the  gnawing  Nemesis 
of  guilty  souls, — not  to  the  chain  of  the  felon,  or  the 
cell  of  the  lunatic,  or  the  grave  of  the  suicide, — ah 
no !  these  with  an  infinite  pity,  these  with  a  faith 
that  transcends  and  tramples  on  the  petty  Phari- 
saisms of  dogma,  these,  sorrowing  but  not  scorning, 
compassionating  but  not  condemning,  we  leave  with 
infinite  tenderness  in  the  tender  hands  of  God, — 
but  no !  he  points  us,  and  we  point  you  now,  to  the 
glorious  company  of  the  high  and  noble,  of  the 
pure  and  holy ;  to.  the  white-robed,  palm-bearing 
procession  of  happy   human   souls;   to   those  who 


136     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

have  fought    and  conquered,   to   those  who  have 
wrestled  and  overcome ! 

3.  But  these  perhaps  you  will  say  to  me  are 
the  strong  great  souls,  the  ScaBvolas  of  Christian 
daring,  the  Manlii  of  Christian  faith.  Temptations 
insignificant  to  them  might  well  be  insuperable  to 
us.  Nay,  my  brethren,  God  is  faithful,  and  will 
not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above  that  ye  are 
able.  In  an  age  of  cold  faith  and  dead  enthusiasm 
no  splendid  heroisms,  no  agonizing  martyrdoms  are 
required  of  you.  Ye  have  not  yet  resisted  unto 
blood,  striving  against  sin.  Not  yet,  like  the  boy 
Origen,  have  you  seen  a  father  torn  from  you  by 
violence ;  or  like  the  girl  Blandina,  been  called  upon 
to  face  the  cruel  gaze  of  the  bloody  amphitheatre. 
He  who  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,  tem- 
pers also  the  temptation  to  the  weak  soul.  He 
knoweth  our  frame,  he  remembereth  that  we  are 
but  dust.  Oh  in  that  hero-multitude  who  follow 
the  Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth,  think  not  that 
there  are  only  the  dauntless  and  the  powerful,  the 
great  in  heart  and  the  strong  in  faith :  no,  there  are 
many  of  the  weak  and  the  timid,  many  of  the 
obscure  and  the  ignorant,  many  of  the  shrinking 
and   the   suffering  there.      We   saw  not,  till  they 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     137 

were  unfolded  for  the  flight  of  death,  their  angel 
wings.  Yes  !  Jacob,  once  a  mean  trickster,  and 
Aaron,  once  a  weak  apostate,  is  there ;  and  Rahab 
the  harlot,  and  David  the  adulterer;  and  Mary 
the  weeping  Magdalene,  and  Matthew  the  con- 
verted publican,  and  Dysmas  the  repentant  thief; 
many  as  frail,  many  as  fallen,  many  as  sinful  as 
the  weakest  and  the  worst  of  you;  but  there  are 
no  stains  on  their  white  robes  now ;  there  is  no 
weakness  or  meanness  in  their  regenerated  spirits 
now,  and  the  solemn  agony  has  faded  from  their 
brows.  You  think  that  you  could  never  have  been  a 
martyr,  yet  women  more  timid,  and  children  more 
delicate,  have  won  and  worn  that  crown  ;  nearer  to 
the  flame  they  were  nearer  to  Christ,  and  as  the  balmy 
winds  of  Paradise  beat  upon  their  foreheads  while 
the  fii'e  roared  about  their  feet,  so  believe  me  will  it 
be  with  you.  I  have  known  martyrs  •  here — ^boys 
ungifted  and  unattractive,  boys  neglected  and  de- 
spised,— yet  so  firm  in  their  innocence,  so  steadfast 
in  their  faith,  that  no  evil  thing  had  power  to  hurt 
them.  Every  day  their  struggle  was  easier;  every 
day  their  path  more  happy.  Weak,  unloved,  and 
singlehanded,  they  overcame  the  world.  And  why  ? 
Oh,  if  any  passing  interest  attaches  to  the  accident 


138     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

of  these  last  words,  would  that  I  could  leave  you 
this  thought  as  an  indelible  impression ; — Why  ? 
because  God  is  faithful.  To  us  in  our  blindness, 
ignorance,  waywardness,  He  does  not  always  seem 
so.  To  the  strong  man  when  he  sits,  despairing  and 
stricken,  amid  the  ruins  of  his  life, — to  the  father 
whose  erring  son  causes  him  agony  and  shame, — to 
the  mother  who  kneels  broken-hearted  beside  the 
cradle  where  her  pretty  little  one  lies  dead, — to  these 
the  sun  shines  not,  and  the  stars  give  no  light, — 
the  heavens  above  their  heads  are  iron,  and  the 
earth  beneath  their  feet  is  brass.  Yet,  oh  how  gen- 
tly He  heals  even  for  these  the  wounds  which  His 
own  loving  hand  has  made ;  how  do  the  clouds  break 
over  them  and  the  pale  silver  gleam  of  resignation 
brighten  into  the  burning  ray  of  faith  and  love. 
Why  art  thou  so  cast  down,  oh  my  soul,  and  why 
art  thou  so  disquieted  within  me  ?  Trust  thou  in 
God.  Is  there  one  of  you,  is  there  one  in  this 
chapel  whom  he  has  not  richly  blessed  ?  I  am  sure 
that  there  is  not  one  of  you.  For  our  path  in 
life,  my  brethren,  is  like  that  of  the  traveller  who 
lands  at  the  famous  port  of  the  Holy  Land.  He 
rides  at  first  under  the  shade  of  palms,  under 
the    golden    orange-groves,    beside     the     crowded 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     139 

fountains,  with  almonds  and  pomegranateif  break- 
ing around  him  into  blossom :  soon  he  leaves  be- 
hind him  these  lovely  groves ;  he  enters  on  the 
bare  and  open  plain ;  the  sun  burns  over  him,  the 
dust-clouds  whirl  around  him ;  but  even  there  the 
path  is  broidered  by  the  quiet  wayside  flowers,  and 
when  at  last  the  bleak  bare  hills  succeed,  his 
heart  bounds  within  him,  for  he  knows  that 
he  shall  catch  his  first  glimpse  of  the  Holy  City,  as 
he  stands  weary  on  their  brow.  Oh  how  often,  my 
brethren,  must  the  Christian,  in  this  the  Holy 
Land  of  his  short  pilgrimage  on  earth,  from  the 
golden  morning  to  the  blaze  of  noon,  from  the  burn- 
ing noon  to  the  beautiful  twilight,  again  and  again 
recall  that  tender  verse  of  the  Prophet,  "  I  know 
the  thoughts  that  I  think  towards  you,"  saith  the 
Lord,  "  thoughts  of  peace  and  not  of  evil" 

4.  Yes,  Grod  is  faithful ;  and  most  of  all,  be- 
cause He  will  lay  no  heavier  burden  on  any  one  of 
us  than  we  can  carry  well.  Whether  in  the  way  of 
trial,  or  in  the  way  of  temptation,  remember,  my 
brethren,  in  the  words  of  the  poet, 

"  'Tis  one  thing  to  be  tempted,  Escalos, 
Another  thing  to  fall.** 

We   shall   all   be   tempted,  but   the  effects  of  the 

fuKIVBRSITT, 


140     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

temptation  depend  upon  ourselves.  Fling  into  the 
same  flame  a  lump  of  clay  and  a  piece  of  gold, — 
the  clay  will  be  hardened,  the  gold  will  melt; 
the  heart  of  Pharaoh  hardened  into  perfidious  in- 
solence, the  soul  of  David  melted  into  pathetic 
song.  Bear  temptation  faithfully,  and  it  will  leave 
you  not  only  unscathed,  but  nobler.  With  each 
temptation  God  will  also  provide  not — as  the  En- 
glish version  has  it — a  way,  but  the  wa,j  of  es- 
cape ;  *  the  one  separate  escape  for  each  separate 
temptation.  Because  God  loves  us,  because  Christ 
died,  because  having  risen  again  He  shed  forth 
the  Spirit  in  our  hearts,  therefore  under  the  fiercest 
assaults  of  Satan  the  soul  may  be  always  safe. 
It  may  be  like  a  beleaguered  city,  the  powers  of 
evil  may  marshal  all  their  devilish  enginery,  and 
make  the  air  hiss  with  their  fiery  darts,  but  every 
sortie  of  the  besieged  shall  be  inevitably  success- 
ful; never  shall  there  be  capitulation;  and  by 
true  resistance  the  assaults  of  the  tempter  shall 
at  last  be  driven  back  in  irretrievable,  disgraceful 
rout. 

It  would  take  me  too  long,  my  brethren,  were  I 
to  dwell  on  the  way  of  escape  from  each  temptation. 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     141 

But  without  dwelling  on  them,  I  would  gladly  men- 
tion— and  merely  mention — ^fbur,  with  the  power 
and  efficacy  of  which  I  have  been  often  struck. 
i.  The  first  is  watchfulness  over  the  thoughts.  As 
is  the  fountain,  so  will  be  the  stream.  Quench  the 
spark,  and  you  are  safe  from  the  conflagration. 
Crush  the  serpent's  Qg^,  and  you  need  not  dread 
the  cockatrice.  Conquer  evil  thoughts,  and  you 
will  have  little  danger  of  evil  words  and  evil  ways. 
The  victory  over  every  temptation  is  easiest,  is 
safest,  is  most  blessed  there,  ii.  The  second  way 
is  avoidance  of  danger.  The  best  courage,  believe 
me,  is  sometimes  shown  by  flight.  Consider  which 
is  your  weakest  point,  who  are  your  most  dangerous 
companions,  which  is  your  guiltiest  hour.  Avoid 
those  companions,  defend  that  weak  point,  put  the 
strongest  guard  upon  those  hours,  iii.  Then,  third- 
ly, overcome  evil  with  good.  Kill  wicked  passion 
by  religious  passion.  Expel  evil  affections  by  no- 
ble yearnings.  Banish  mean  cravings  by  holy  en- 
thusiasms. " Give  me  a  great  thought"  said  the 
German  poet,  "  that  I  may  live  on  it."  Read  great 
books ;  enrich  your  minds  with  noble  sentiments  ; 
above  all,  read  your  Bibles ;  fill  your  whole  souls 
with  the  thought  of  Christ ;  make  of  him  not  only 


142     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

a  Kedeemer,  but  a  brother, — not  only  a  Saviour, 
but  a  friend,  iv.  And  fourthly,  I  will  mention 
prayer.  That,  my  brethren,  is  the  truest  amulet 
against  the  siren  songs,  the  holiest  enchantment 
against  each  Circaean  spell.  Suffer  me  to  quote  the 
words  of  that  great  poet,  whom  I  have  wished 
many  of  you  to  love  : 

"  Amongst  the  rest  a  small  unsightly  root, 
But  of  divine  eflfect,  he  culled  me  out ; 
*  *  *  *  ♦ 

He  called  it  Hoemony,  and  gave  it  me  : 

And  bade  me  keep  it  as  of  sov'ran  use 

'Grainst  all  enchantments,  mildew,  blast,  or  damp. 

Or  ghastly  furies'  apparition." 

I  have  said  nothing,  my  brethren,  of  happy  Sabbath 
days;  nothing  of  the  strength  that  comes  from 
mutual  communion;  nothing  of  these  delightful 
services  ;  nothing  of  kindly  admonitions  ;  nothing 
of  confirmation ;  nothing  of  the  memories  of  bap- 
tism; nothing  of  that  divine  viaticum  on  life's 
journey,  the  Supper  of  the  Lord.  My  brethren,  I 
cannot  say  all  I  would,  or  a  tithe  of  all.  Would  to 
God  that  this  little  might  be  enough;  enough  to 
convince  you  that  because  God  is  faithful  you  never 
need  do  wrong ;  enough  to  point  to  the  drawn 
sword  in  the  path  of  wilful  sinners  ;  enough  to  show 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     143 

to  those  who  are  struggling  timidly  that  around 
them  are  angel  champions,  and  over  them  are  in- 
vincible shields.  To  those  who  are  new  boys  among 
you,  I  would  say.  Resist  the  devil,  and  he  will  flee 
from  you.  Ohsta  principiis — avoid  the  beginnings 
of  evil — this  is  the  way  of  escape  for  you.  And 
you  who  have  learnt  here  some  lessons  of  sin  and 
sorrow,  believe  me  that  no  less  to  you  ako  lies  open 
the  way  of  escape.  Oh  rouse  yourselves,  and  play 
the  men.  Indolence  and  selfishness  would  terrify 
you  by  the  sight  of  lions  in  the  path,  but  press 
onward  and  you  will  find  them  chained.  God  does 
not  mean  you  to  perish.  Your  Lord  came  to  seek 
the  sinful ;  He  died  to  save  the  lost.  Make  but 
one  effort,  and  yours  too  shall  be  the  blessed- 
ness of  Him  "  whose  iniquity  is  forgiven,  whose  sin 
is  covered." 

My  subject  is  ended.  I  thank  God  from  my 
heart  that  it  has  been  a  subject^  of  comfort,  of  en- 
couragement, of  hope.  And  here  I  would  gladly 
close,  but  the  last  word  must  be  spoken  however 
painful.  After  more  than  fifteen  years  among  you, 
it  would  not  be  natural,  you  would  not  wish  me,  to 
make  no  allusion  to  a  parting  which  to  me  at  least 


144     THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION. 

is  very  full  of  pain.  Yet  what  shall  I  say .?  To 
those  Colleagues  who  for  so  many  years  have  treated 
me  with  such  generous  sympathy  and  indulgent 
kindness,  I  would  offer  from  a  full  heart  my  sincere 
and  earnest  and  grateful  thanks.  To  all  those — 
not  a  few  of  your  number — whom  at  one  period  or 
other  it  has  been  my  high  privilege  to  teach,  I 
would  say,  if  God  has  ever  enabled  me  to  speak  to 
you  any  true  and  righteous  words,  continue  thou  in 
the  things  that  thou  hast  learned.  To  those  who 
have  been  placed  towards  me  in  the  yet  nearer 
and  dearer  connection  of  Friends  and  Pupils,  I 
would  say,  Think  kindly  of  me  still,  and  for  my 
sake  think  and  speak  kindly  of  the  new  home  to 
which  God's  providence  is  calling  me.  And  on  ail 
the  Masters  and  Scholars  and  Benefactors  of  this 
great  and  famous  school  I  would  invoke  God's 
richest  and  choicest  blessings.  You  are  entering 
on  a  year  of  intense  interest.  I  pray  to  God  that 
the  tercentenary  of  Harrow  may  be  right  royally 
prospered  ;  and  when  its  celebrations  are  over,  when 
its  benefits  are  achieved,  may  it  witness  the  yet 
deeper  blessing  of  ever  holier  traditions  ;  may  it 
hand  on  from  year  to  year  the  ever-brightening 
torch   of  knowledge  and  of  truth.     But  one  word 


THE  CONQUEST  OVER  TEMPTATION.     145 

more.  When  the  last  echo  of  my  voice  shall  have 
died  away,  we  shall  all  kneel  upon  our  knees  to 
utter  in  silence  one  last  petition  ere  the  Sabbath 
services  are  over  and  we  leave  the  House  of  God. 
Oh  suffer  me  to  beg  of  you,  as  my  last  request,  that 
each  one  of  you.  Masters  and  Boys  and  Friends, 
would,  as  you  kneel  before  our  common  Father, 
utter  one  brief  prayer  for  God's  blessing  upon  him 
whose  place  here  will  know  him  no  more.  It  will 
cheer  me  more  than  I  can  tell  you  in  the  midst  of 
new  and  difficult  reponsibilities,  to  think  that,  as 
I  was  leaving  my  Harrow  home,  the  hearts  of  all  in 
this  School  Chapel  which  we  love  so  well,  were  for 
one  moment  united  as  the  heart  of  one,  in  the  sweet 
and  peaceful  petition  "  For  my  brethren  and  com- 
panions' sake  I  will  wish  thee  prosperity ;  yea,  be- 
cause of  th«  house  of  the  Lord  our  God  I  will  seek 
to  do  thee  good." 

T  <Je^  Oeip  x^P^C  T^  StSSvTi 
^filv  rb  viKoa  6ia  rov  Kvpiov  ^av 
^Iriaov  Xpiarov. 

10 


VII. 

WISDOM   AND   KNOWLEDGE. 


Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing :  therefore  get  wisdom :  and  with 
all  thy  getting  get  understanding.— Provekbs  iv.  7.* 


Bead  in  the  light  which  falls  upon  it  from  the 
teaching  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  there  is,  per- 
haps, no  Book  of  holy  Scripture  which  illustrates  more 
clearly  than  the  Book  of  Proverbs  the  objects  and 
th«  privileges,  the  duties  and  the  dangers,  of  this 
seat  of  learning.  Into  the  wonderful  structure  of 
that  book,  into  the  TroltmolKiUc  (Axpia  of  its  noble  teach- 
ing, it  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter ;  but  there  are 
two  features  of  it  which  will  immediately -strike  the 
most  careless  reader;  one  is  the  allusive  contrast 
which  runs  through  its  earlier  chapters,  the  other  is 
the  constant  connection  of  Wisdom  with  Knowl- 
edge. Two  voices  are  heard  in  it, — the  voice  of 
Prudence  and  the  voice  of  Folly  ;  the  voice  of  "Virtue 
and  the  voice  of  Pleasure  ;  the  pleading  of  the  vir- 

*  Preached  in  the  chapel  of  King's  College,  London,  at  the 
Annual  Commemoration,  July  16,  1871. 

(147) 


148  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

gin  Innocence  and  the  pleading  of  the  harlot  Sense ; 
the  enticements  of  a  Passion  earthly,  sensual,  devil- 
ish, and  the  lofty  invitations  of  a  Wisdom  which  is 
pure,  peaceable,  gentle,  full  of  mercy  and  good 
fruits. 

Subtle,  and  sweet,  and  perilous,  and  evanescent, 
— ^powerful  only  to  the  soul  that  forgets  its  God, — 
heard  only  in  the  twilight,  in  the  evening,  in  the 
black  dark  night,  an  unhallowed  song  is  suffered  to 
break  in  upon  those  solemn  utterances;  a  song, 
drowned  almost  from  the  very  beginning  by  the 
groans  of  the  deluded  and  the  stern  epitaph  pro- 
nounced over  the  living  dead :  and  ever,  overmas- 
tering that  strain,  shaming  it  into  terrified  silence, 
chilling  it  into  penitent  despair — is  heard  that  other 
Voice,  pure  as  the  voices  of  the  Seraphim,  offering 
peace  and  pleasantness  in  life,  and  hope  and  safety 
beyond  the  grave, — an  ornament  of  grace  for  the 
living,  a  crown  of  everlasting  remembrance  and 
unfading  glory  for  the  dead. 

And  while  the  praises  of  this  heavenly  Wisdom  are 
painted  in  such  fair  colors, — while  its  worth  is  set 
far  above  rubies  and  crystal,  the  gold  of  Ophir,  and 
the  topaz  of  Ethiopia, — it  is,  both  in  the  Book 
of  Proverbs  and  in  other  parts  of  Scripture,  united 


WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE.  149 

constantly  with  Knowledge.  "In  the  night  that 
God  did  appear  unto  Solomon,  He  said  unto  him, 
Ask  what  I  shall  give  thee.  And  Solomon  said  unto 
God,  Give  me  now  wisdom  and  knowledge.  And 
God  said  unto  Solomon,  Wisdom  and  knowledge  is 
granted  unto  thee."  They  are  not  mere  synonyms. 
Knowledge  may  come  when  wisdom  lingers ;  and,  on 
the  other  haftd,  wisdom  may  exist  in  rich  and  divine 
ahundance  where  knowledge  is  scanty  and  superfi- 
cial. And  it  is  clear  that,  in  Scripture,  wisdom  is 
the  loftier  and  the  more  sacred  of  the  two.  Take 
knowledge  to  mean  the  sum  total  of  every  magnifi- 
cent endowment  and  every  extensive  acquisition; 
— ^let  it  involve  not  only  erudition,  but  insight'; 
not  only  information,  but  intellect ;  not  only  the- 
oretical acquaintance,  but  practical  ability ;  make 
it  include,  if  you  will,  the  power  to  think  as  Plato 
thought,  and  to  write  as  Shakespeare  wrote;  be- 
stow it  on  one  single  mind  with  such  brightness 
as  never  yet  illuminated  the  world,  and  reward  it 
with  a  splendor  of  reputation  such  as  no  man 
ever  yet  enjoyed, — ^yet  even  then  knowledge  falls 
far,  far  below  wisdom, — ^below  wisdom  merged  in 
obscurity ;  below  wisdom  accompanied  by  igno- 
rance ;  below  wisdom  burdened  with  every  earthly 


150  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

calamity,  and  insulted  by  every  human  scorn.  Does 
not  all  history  justify  herein  the  estimate  of  Scrip- 
ture ?  Have  we  not  read  of  men  whose  heads 
towered  high  above  their  contemporaries,  who  by 
eloquence,  or  song,  or  intellect,  have  elevated  and 
charmed  mankind,  and  yet  of  whom  the  humblest 
child,  the  most  ignorant  pauper  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  is  greater  than  these  ?  Any  age  will 
furnish  us  with  examples.  Seneca  uttered  words 
of  lofty  morality  and  almost  Apostolic  force,  yet 
his  inconsistent  sycophancy  and  grasping  avarice 
awoke  the  scorn  of  even  a  dissolute  and  greedy  age. 
Ab6lard  was  endowed  with  an  intellect  keener  than 
is  granted  in  a  century  to  any  of  our  race ;  yet  so 
flagrant  was  his  folly,  so  fatal  his  vanity,  so  gross 
his  crime,  that  the  miserablest  could  afford  to  look 
on  him  with  pity,  and  almost  the  meanest  with  con- 
tempt. Bacon  has  won  for  his  glorious  intellect  the 
reverence  and  admiration  of  every  succeeding  age, 
yet  there  is,  alas  !  many  an  ignoble  passage  of  his 
life  which  can  only  claim  to  be  forgotten  by  the 
generous,  and  forgiven  by  the  just.  Has  not  God 
over  and  over  again  scattered  penal  blindness  over 
vaunted  acquisitions,  and  smiting  a  godless  in- 
tellect with  a  moral  imbecility,  has   He   not  frus- 


WISDOM   AND   KNOWLEDGE.  151 

trated  the  tokens  of  the  liars,  and  made  diviners 
mad  ?  But  why  need  we  dwell  on  the  fact  that  in- 
tellectual eminence  is  no  preservative  against  moral 
infatuation,  when  God  has  written  the  same  truth 
so  large  over  the  history  of  nations  ?  Have  we  not 
known  mighty  peoples  who,  professing  themselves 
to  be  wise,  became  fools ;  who,  because  when  they 
knew  God  they  glorified  him  not  as  God,  became 
vain  in  their  imagination,  and  their  foolish  heart  was 
darkened  ?  Did  the  lustre  of  her  genius,  did  the 
liberality  of  her  institutions,  did  the  glorious  roll  of 
her  eloquence,  did  the  lyric  sweetness  of  her  song, 
save  Greece  from  the  infamy  of  her  obliteration,  when 
she  perished  under  the  eating  cancer  of  her  favorite 
sins  ?  Did  the  iron  sceptre  or  the  invincible  sword, 
did  the  dignity  of  her  government  or  the  strength 
of  her  determination,  deliver  Rome  from  the  long 
agony  of  her  vile  corruption  and  pitiable  decay  ? 
The  fifteenth  and  the  eighteenth  centuries,  for  all 
their  reviving  knowledge  and  glittering  refinement, 
were  they  not  full  of  wickedness,  covetousness, 
maliciousness ;  full  of  envy,  murder,  debate,  deceit, 
malignity?  Did  not  the  one  honor  Aretino  as  a 
])oct,  and  Poggio  as  a  wit ;  and  the  other  accept 
Chesterfield  as  a  moralist,  and  elevate  Voltaire  into 


152  WISDOM   AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

a  sage  ?  Yes, — ^and  it  is  a  lesson  of  which  this  cen- 
tury too  has  need, — ^knowledge  without  wisdom  is, 
as  even  a  corrupt  and  worldly  poet  has  expressed  it, 

"  Dim  as  the  borrowed  beams  of  moon  or  stars 
To  lonely,  weary,  wandering  travellers ; 
And  as  their  twinkling  tapers  disappear 
When  day's  bright  lord  ascends  the  hemisphere, 
So  pale  grows  Reason  at  Religion's  sight, 
So  dies  and  so  dissolves  in  supernatural  light." 

Wisdom  then  is  the  principal  thing,  therefore  get 
wisdom.  But  what  is  wisdom  7  The  world  gives 
the  name  to  many  higher  and  lower  manifesta- 
tions of  intellectual  foresight  and  practical  sense, 
but  Scripture  sees  in  it  nothing  save  one  single 
law  of  life.  In  that  most  magnificent  outburst 
of  life.  In  that  most  magnificent  outburst  of 
Semitic  poetry,  tne  28th  chapter  of  the  book  of 
Job, — after  pointing  out  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  high  and  noble  natural  knowledge,  that  there 
is  a  vein  for  the  silver,  and  ore  of  gold,  and  a  place 
of  sapphires,  and  reservoirs  of  subterranean  fire, — 
the  Patriarch  asks,  "  But  where  shall  wisdom  be 
found,  and  where  is  the  place  of  understanding .?  " — 
and  after  showing  with  marvellous  power  that  it  is 
beyond  man's  unaided  search, — that  the  Depths  and 
the  Sea  say  "  It  is  not  in  me,"  and  Destruction  and 


WISDOM   AND   KNOWLEDGE.  153 

Death  have  but  heard  the  fame  thereof  with  their 
ears, — then  he  adds,  as  with  one  great  thunder- 
crash  of  concluding  music,  "  God  understandeth  the 
way  thereof,   and  He  knoweth  the  place   thereof 

And  unto  man  He  said,  Behold,  the  fear  of 

the  Lord,  that  is  wisdom  ;  and  to  depart  from  evil 
is  understanding."  And  again,  "  The  fear  of  the 
Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom."  And  again,  he 
who,  in  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  rises  step  by  step 
out  of  the  dreary  cynicism  of  the  sated  worldling 
into  the  calm  confidence  of  a  godly  hope,  states  as 
the  conclusion  no  less  than  as  the  commencement 
of  the  whole  matter,  "  Fear  God  and  keep  His  com- 
mandments, for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man : " 
and  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  after  the  question, 
"  Who  is  a  wise  man,  and  endued  with  knowledge 
among  you  ? "  the  answer  is,  not  he  who  under- 
standeth all  mysteries,  not  he  who  can  speak  with 
the  tongue  of  men  or  of  angels,  but  "  Let  him  show 
out  of  a  good  conversation  his  works  with  meekness 
of  wisdom." 

But,  if  this  be  so,  perhaps  some  one  may  say, 
Is  any  knowledge  worth  the  attainment,  save  the  one 
knowledge  which  is  wisdom  ?  If  knowledge  be  full 
of  difficulties, — ^if,  without  charity,  it  puffeth  up, — 


154  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

if  he  who  increaseth  it  increaseth  sorrow,  why  then 
do  we  labor  for  it  with  such  sore  travail?  We 
toil  and  toil,  and  perhaps  in  a  moment  we  fall  ill, 
and  in  one  day  the  flames  of  a  fever  calcine  for  ever 
the  tablets  of  the  earthly  memory,  or  in  one  moment 
death  comes  upon  us,  and  under  its  cold  ^^hicjacet" 
buries  all  that  we  have  won.  Or  death  comes  to 
another  who  has  not  labored,  and,  as  that  impene- 
trable curtain  is  drawn  aside,  there  is  revealed  to 
him  as  by  a  single  lightning-flash,  secrets  deeper 
ten  thousand-fold  than  those  which  we  have  wearied 
ourselves  in  the  very  fire  to  win.  Why  strive  then 
after  that  which  death  may  in  a  moment  obliterate, 
or  disease  destroy  ?  Were  it  not  better  done  as 
others  use — ^not  indeed  to  waste  life*  in  indolent 
frivolity  or  shameful  sloth,  but  to  give  it  all  to 
prayer  and  penitence,  to  religious  musings  or  char- 
itable works  ?  "  Oh  happy  school  of  Christ,"  wrote 
Peter  of  the  Cells  to  a  young  disciple  who  had  com- 
plained of  the  weary  seductions  and  splendid  vices 
of  the  mediaBval  Paris, — "  Oh  happy  school  of 
Christ,  where  He  teaches  our  heart  with  the  word 
of  power ;  where  the  book  is  not  purchased  nor  the 
master  paid.  There,  life  availeth  more  than  learn- 
ing, and  simplicity  than  science.     There,  none  are 


WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE.  155 

refuted,  save  those  who  are  for  ever  rejected,  and  one 
word  of  final  judgment,  'lie'  or  'Venite,'  decides  all 
questions  and  all  cavils  for  ever."  It  was  a  natural 
exclamation,  but  the  answer  to  it  is,  that  to  the 
true  Christian  every  school  will  be  a  school  of 
Christ.  On  the  ample  leaf  of  knowledge,  whether 
it  be  rich  with  the  secrets  of  nature  or  with  the 
spoils  of  time,  he  will  read  no  name  save  the  name 
of  God.  The  great  stone  pages  of  the  world  will 
have  it  carved  upon  them  legibly,  as  on  the  granite 
tables  of  Sinai,  and  stars  will  sing  of  it  in  their 
courses,  and  winds  blow  and  waters  roll.  Each 
Science,  each  History,  each  Literature,  will  be  to 
him  but  a  fresh  volume  of  divine  revelation.  We 
were  not  meant  to  leave  those  volumes  clasped,  or 
to  suffer  the  book  of  life  to  drop  out  of  our  idle 
hands  unread.  Kather  would  we  exclaim  to  each 
young  student,  as  did  the  wise  and  holy  St.  Ed- 
mund of  Canterbury,  "Work  as  though  you  would 
live  for  ever  ;  live  as  though  you  would  die  to  day." 
To  seek  for  knowledge  where  it  is  possible  is  the 
ilear  duty  of  man ;  to  win  it  is  the  gift  of  God. 
Knowledge  apart  from  wisdom  is  like  a  vestibule 
dissevered  from  its  temple ;  but  it  may  on  the  other 
hand  be  the  worthy  vestibule  of  that  sacred  shrine. 


156  WISDOM   AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

^^  Felix  ille"  says  St.  Augustine,  ^^qui  hcec  omnia 
nesciat,  te  autem  sciat ; "  aye,  but  happier  he  in 
whom  knowledge  is  but  a  spark  kindled  from  the 
fountain  of  all  heat,  a  sunbeam  whereby  he  may 
climb  to  the  Father  of  Lights.  If  in  any  soul  there 
be,  by  the  grace  of  God,  health  and  happiness,  truth 
and  justice,  purity  and  peace,  then  for  that  soul 
undoubtedly  will  industry  be  a  fresh  virtue,  and 
knowledge  an  added  grace.  Knowledge  is  a  vain 
thing  only  when  it  is  sought  out  of  unworthy  mo- 
tives and  applied  to  selfish  ends ;  but  it  becomes 
noble  and  glorious  when  it  is  desired  solely  for 
man's  benefit,  and  consecrated  wholly  to  God's 
praise.  "  There  are  some,"  writes  St.  Bernard, 
"who  desire  to  know  with  the  sole  purpose  that 
they  may  know,  and  it  is  base  curiosity ;  and  some 
who  desire  to  know  that  they  may  be  known,  and 
it  is  base  ambition ;  and  some  who  desire  to  know 
that  they  may  sell  their  knowledge  for  wealth  and 
honor,  and  it  is  base  avarice:  but  there  are  some 
also  who  desire  to  know,  that  they  may  be  edified, 
and  it  is  prudence ;  and  some  who  desire  to  know 
that  they  may  edify  others,  and  it  is  charity." 
"  My  child,"  said  St.  Columban  to  Luanus,  when  he 
saw  how  ardently  he  devoted  himself  to  learning, 


WISDOM    AND   KNOWLEDGE.  157 

"  thou  hast  asked  a  perilous  gift  of  God.  Many  out 
of  undue  love  of  knowledge  have  made  shipwreck  of 
their  souls."  "  My  father,"  replied  the  boy  with 
deep  humility,  "if  I  learn  to  know  Grod,  I  shall 
never  offend  Him,  for  they  only  offend  Him  who 
know  Him  not."  "  Go  my  son,"  replied  the  Abbot, 
charmed  with  his  reply  ;  "remain  firm  in  that  faith, 
and  the  true  science  shall  conduct  thee  on  the  road 
to  heaven." 

And  therefore  we  earnestly  ask  your  support  to- 
day, a  support,  which  as  you  may  know,  is  urgently 
required,  for  this  seat  of  sound  learning  as  well  as 
of  religious  education, — for  a  place  where  the  youth 
of  England  may  be  trained,  as  have  been  the  noblest 
of  their  fathers  before  them,  to  be  not  only  "  profit- 
able members  of  the  Church  and  Commonwealth," 
but  also  to  be  "  hereafter  partakers  of  the  immortal 
glories  of  the  Kesurrection."  It  was,  as  you  are 
aware,  the  avowed  design  of  King's  College  that  its 
alumni  should  be  taught  holily  as  well  as  wisely, 
and  should  be  definitely  brought  up  not  only  as 
scholars  but  as  Christians.  Well  we  know  how 
heavy  are  the  assaults  which  in  these  days  the  relig- 
ion of  Christ  must  undergo;  and  amid  those  as- 
saults we  need  all  the  knowledge  that  we  can.     If, 


158          '  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

as  men  say,  that  religion  is  doomed  to  perish,  we 
smile  indeed  in  the  certainty  of  faith,  knowing  that 
Christ  has  built  His  Church  upon  a  rock,  and  that 
never  shall  the  gates  of  Hell  prevail  against  it;  but 
we  are  ready  to  exclaim  with  the  ancient  hero  when 
his  battle-brunt  was  checked  in  the  darkness, 
•ev  de  <j>det  Kai  dXeaaovl  Our  enemies  charge  us  with 
timidity  and  obscurantism;  let  us  in  answer,  as 
children  of  the  light,  advance  fearlessly  into  the 
battle.  As  far  as  the  farthest  have  pressed  into 
science,  we  would  press;  as  high  as  the  highest 
have  soared  into  speculation,  we  would  soar ;  as  deep 
as  the  deepest  have  dug  in  search  for  truth,  we  too 
would  dig.  We  are  false  descendants  of  the  Crusa- 
ders if  we  yield  to  cowardice ;  false  heirs  of  the 
Martyrs  if  we  shrink  from  pain ;  false  children  and 
false  successors  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen 
and  the  Keformers  if  we  scowl  on  intellect  or  sneer 
at  knowledge ;  false  to  every  tradition  of  our  faith 
and  of  our  history,  of  our  vocation  and  of  our  name, 
if,  being  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  and  having 
escaped  the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world  through 
lust,  we  do  not  "give  all  diligence  to  add  to  our 
faith  Virtue,  and  to  our  virtue  Knowledge." 

And  it  seems  to  me,  my  brethren,  that  in  every 


WISDOM   AND   KNOWLEDGE.  159 

word  which  I  have  spoken,  I  have  been  but  feebly 
endeavoring  to  interpret  and  illustrate  the  reasons 
for  which  this  college  exists,  namely,  so  far  as  may 
be,  to  make  knowledge  the  handmaid  of  Religion, 
and  each  step  in  its  acquisition  a  step  also  in  holi- 
ness of  living  and  certitude  of  faith.  And  therefore, 
in  one  of  its  departments,  where  its  students  learn 
to  apply  for  the  service  of  man  the  Laws  of  Nature, 
it  would  impress  upon  them  that  those  majestic 
agencies,  which  it  is  given  to  man  only  to  control 
and  modify  but  not  to  change,  are  no  mere  blind 
passionless  elemental  Forces,  but  the  creation  and 
expression  of  a  loving  and  a  living  Will. — And  in 
another  of  its  great  departments,  devoted  to  the 
Arts  of  Healing,  it  would  teach  them  not  only  to 
deal  tenderly  with  this  "harp  of  a  thousand  strings," 
because  of  its  delicate  and  beautiful  organization, 
but,  far  rather,  to  regard  each  sufferer  who  may  rely 
upon  their  skill  as  one  for  whom  Christ  died,  and 
each  human  body  as  a  temple — ay,  even  in  its  worst 
ruins,  still  as  a  temple  of  the  living  God.  Who 
shall  overrate  the  value  of  such  teachings  ?  There 
have  been  those 

"  Who,  in  the  dark  dissolving  human  heart 
And  hallowed  secrets  of  this  microcosm, 


160  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

Dabbling,  with  shameless  jest,  a  shameful  hand 
Encamalized  their  spirits;" 

There  have  been  those  who  have  marred  a  scientific 
eminence  by  a  godless  materialism ;  there  have  been 
those  who  have  desecrated  a  noble  study  by  a  brutal 
irreverence: — ^but  here  the  young  student  may  be 
taught  to  hallow  the  healing  art  by  making  it  yet 
more  and  more  of  a  resemblance  to  the  life  of  Him 
who  went  about  doing  good,  and  healing  those  who 
were  sick  of  divers  diseases ;  and  here  he  may  learn, 
an'  if  he  will,  to  make  his  high  profession  a  blessing 
alike  to  the  souls  and  to  the  bodies  of  those  with 
whom  he  deals, — a  profession  eminently  pure  and 
tender  and  unselfish — pre-eminently  Christian,  and 
therefore  in  exact  proportion  as  it  is  so,  pre-emi- 
nently great. — How  invaluable  again  may  be  a  teach- 
ing avowedly  religious  in  supplementing  the  deficien- 
cies, in  counteracting  the  dangers,  of  a  training  in 
Ancient  Literature!  how  may  it  show  that  the 
saints,  and  the  great  men,  and  the  civilization  of 
Christianity,  transcend  the  loftiest  achievements  of 
heathendom ;  that  the  truest  progress  of  humanity 
has  been  its  progress  under  the  banner  of  the  Cross, 
and  that  with  all  the  natural  virtues  and  splendid 
heroisms  of  those  memorable  days,  they  yet  cannot 


WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE.  161 

sway  the  soul  with  one  thousandth  part  of  that 
thrilling  and  tender  power  which  lies  in  that  invita- 
tion, so  sweet  and  so  divine,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye 
that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest!" 

Once  more  and  lastly,  there  is  one  department 
of  this  College  which  is  devoted  to  the  direct  and 
immediate  study  of  sacred  things.  If  it  be  the  ob- 
ject of  every  literary  training  which  is  truly  Chris- 
tian to  "baptize  as  it  were  the  logic  and  literature  of 
Greece  and  Rome,"  and  to  read  many  books  that 
we  and  all  others  may  the  better  read  the  one,  it  is 
also  deeply  desirable,  and  desirable  more  than  ever 
in  an  age  of  difficulty  and  doubt,  that  the  studies  of 
those  who  are  to  be  its  ministers  should  be  immedi- 
ately devoted  to  the  doctrines,  the  history,  and  the 
evidences  of  our  faith.  He  who  has  been  called  the 
last  of  the  Romans,*  saw,  in  his  famous  vision,  a 
woman  full  of  years  but  of  unexhausted  strength, 
and  brilliant  countenance,  and  glowing  eyes,  on  the 
lower  skirt  of  whose  garments  of  exquisite  work- 
manship was  inwoven  the  letter  $,  and  on  the  upper 
the  letter  e,  with  letters  which  seemed  to  rise  be- 
tween them  like  the  steps  of  a  ladder.     But  those 

*  Boethius,  De  ConsoUUione ;  ad  init. 
11 


162  WISDOM    AND    KNOWLEDGE. 

garments  were  aged  and  neglected,  and  a  part  of 
them  seemed  to  have  been  torn  away  as  if  by  vio- 
lence. To  mend  those  rent  robes,  to  restore  them 
from  neglect,  to  re-supply  the  torn  fragments,  to 
brighten  the  dimmed  letters  which  are  woven  upon 
them,  to  make  clear  once  more  the  connection  be- 
tween Philosophy  and  Theology,  to  show  that  The- 
ology may  be  indeed  the  '^scientia  scientiarum"  if 
it  be  animated  by  enthusiasm  and  inspired  by  truth, 
— this  is  the  task  of  those  who  labor  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Theology.  And  surely  all  these  tasks  are 
worthy  of  your  hearty  sympathy  and  worthy  of 
your  generous  aid  !  Should  it  blunt  that  sympathy 
or  diminish  that  aid  to  be  informed  that  this  In- 
stitution, so  lofty  in  its  purposes,  is  expressly  devot- 
ed to  the  support  and  service  of  the  English 
Church  ?  If  it  be  Patriotism  to  aid  our  country, 
is  it  mere  Sectarianism  to  support  our  Church  ?  If 
it  was  held  glorious  in  a  Spartan  of  old  to  love  the 
civil  institutions  of  Sparta,  is  it  a  mere  narrowness 
in  us  to  love  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  England  7 
The  poet  says  "  dear  city  of  Cecrops ; "  shall  we 
not  say  "  dear  city  of  God  ?  "  It  is  probable  that 
days  of  struggle  and  anxiety  are  before  us.  And 
what   in   those   days  shall  support  the  Church  of 


WISDOM   AND   KNOWLEDGE.  163 

England  ?  Not  her  pride  of  station — that  may  be 
humiliated;  not  her  connection  with  the  State — 
that  may  be  abruptly  severed ;  not  her  magnificent 
endowments — they  may  be  rudely  torn  away  ;  but 
this — if  men  shall  be  able  to  say  of  her,  as  the  Spirit 
said  unto  the  Angel  of  the  Church  in  Thyatira,  "  I 
know  thy  works,  and  charity,  and  service,  and  faith, 
and  thy  patience,  and  thy  works ;  and  the  last  to  be 
more  than  the  first."  One  of  those  works,  and  one 
for  which  she  hath  mighty  witnesses,  has  surely  been 
the  high  work  of  a  Christian  education.  Oh,  here- 
in may  her  last  works  be  ever  more  than  her  first  I 
And  though,  in  these  days  of  struggling  selfishness, 
the  virtue  of  Public  Spirit  seems  in  most  men  to 
be  well-nigh  dead,  may  God  kindle  the  desire,  as 
He  has  granted  the  ability,  among  some  of  those 
who  hear  me,  to  help — to  help  cheerfully  and  to 
help  munificently — in  this  great  work  to-day. 

TQ  eEi2  AOSA. 


YIII. 

WORKma  WITH  OUR  MIGHT. 


And  in  every  work  that  lie  began  in  the  service  of  the  House  of 
God,  and  in  the  Law,  and  in  the  Commandments,  to  seek  his 
God,  he  did  it  with  all  his  heart,  and  prospered. — 2  Chron. 
xxxi.  21  *  

Work,  Energy,  Success — those  are  the  prom- 
inent conceptions  brought  before  us  by  this  text, 
and  those  are  the  main  topics  of  the  plain  and 
familiar  thoughts  I  must  address  to  you  this  morn- 
ing. The  duty  of  work,  the  necessity  of  energy, 
the  certainty  of  success, — such  are  the  impressions 
which,  imperfect  as  must  be  our  consideration  of 
this  subject,  I  would  yet  desire,  by  God's  grace, 
to  leave  upon  your  minds.  You  are  gathered  at 
an  English  public  school,  that  you  may  prepare  for 
the  work  of  your  lives,  and  begin  it  here.  Now, 
the  work  of  a  good  man  in  the  world  is  mainly 
threefold : — Work  in  the  ordinary  business  of  life ; 
work  for  the  good  of  others  ;  work  to  make  his  own 

*  Preached  in  the  Chapel  of  Clifton  College  at  the  Annual 
Commemoration,  June  11,  1872. 

(165) 


166  WORKING   WITH   OUR   MIGHT. 

soul  worthy  of  its  eternal  inheritance ;  and  in  each 
of  these  three  tasks — which  are  -  in  reality  blended 
into  one — toil  and  energy  are  the  appointed  condi- 
tions ;  with  them,  by  God's  blessing,  success  is  the 
certain  reward. 

And  here,  on  the  threshold,  I  hope  that  not  one 
of  you — not  even  the  youngest  boy  here — is  in  any 
way  repelled  or  disheartened  by  the  thought  that 
work — aye,  and  hard  work — ^is,  in  some  form  or 
other,  the  law  of  life.  There  is,  believe  me,  noth- 
ing whatever  stern,  or  repellant,  or  wearisome  in 
the  thought.  On  the  contrary,  if  God  said  "In 
the  sweat  of  thy  brow  thou  shalt  eat  bread,"  He  said 
it  in  mercy  to  a  race  fallen  from  innocence.  If  He 
cursed  the  ground,  He  cursed  it  for  man's  sake. 
Even  the  Heathen  poet  could  say 

Pater  ipse  colendi 
Hand  facilem.  esse  viam  yoluit. 

Yes,  work  is  the  best  birthright  which  man  still  re- 
tains. It  is  the  strongest  of  moral  tonics,  the  most 
vigorous  of  mental  medicines.  All  nature  shows  us 
something  analogous  to  this.  The  standing  pool 
stagnates  into  pestilence ;  the  running  stream  is 
pure.    The  very  earth  we  tread  on,  the  very  air  we 


WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT.  167 

breathe,  would  be  unwholesome  but  for  the  agita- 
ting forces  of  wind  and  sea.  In  balmy  and  ener- 
vating regions,  where  the  summer  of  the  broad 
belt  of  the  world  furnishes  man  in  prodigal  luxuri- 
ance with  the  means  of  life,  he  sinks  into  a  des- 
picable and  nerveless  lassitude;  but  he  is  at  his 
noblest  and  his  best  in  those  regions  where  he  has 
to  wrestle  with  the  great  forces  of  nature  for  his 
daily  bread.  I  trust  that  every  one  of  you,  I 
trust  that  every  rightly  trained  and  manly  English 
boy  of  this  generation,  feels  a  right  scorn  for  a 
slothful,  which  is  always  a  miserable  life.  I  trust 
that  not  one  is  so  ignorant  as  to  fancy  that  a  life 
of  toil  is  also  necessarily  a  life  without  enjoyment. 
Your  school-life  here  gives  you  many  a  golden  op- 
portunity of  innocent  happiness ;  many  a  spring  and 
summer  day  in  which  the  world  is  "  wrapped  round 
with  sweet  air  and  bathed  in  sunshine,"  and  "  it 
is  a  luxury  to  breathe  the  breath  of  life."  God  as 
little  grudges  you  these  as  he  grudges  to  the  weary 
traveller  his  draught  of  the  desert  spring ;  and  he 
who  will  work  but  faithfully  will  assuredly  receive 
of  God  many  a  free  and  happy  day  spent  under  the 
blue  sky,  in  which  he  may,  as  it  were,  draw  large 
draughts  of  sunshine  into  his  bosom,  and  rise  for 


168  WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT. 

happy  hours  with  thoughts  fragrant  as  roses,  and 
pure  as  the  dew  upon  their  leaves.  The  man  or 
boy  who  has  first  thoroughly  done  his  duty, — not 
with  eye-service,  as  a  man-pleaser,  but  with  single- 
ness of  heart  serving  God — ^may  afterwards  enjoy  to 
the  very  utmost  his  innocent  delight ; — 

The  hour  so  spent  shall  live 
Not  tmapplauded  in  the  book  of  Heaven. 

/  Yes,  my  brethren,  only  put  duty  always  before 
'pleasure.  Never  invert  tliis  order ;  never  let  pleas- 
ure interfere  with  the  times  of  duty ;  never  let 
pleasure  usurp  the  place  of  duty ;  never  let  pleasure 
infringe  on  the  domain  of  duty.  To  do  this  is  to 
imitate  those  ancient  Egyptians  who  worshipped  a 
fly  and  offered  an  ox  in  sacrifice  to  it.  And  when 
the  higher  purposes  of  life  are  thus  subordinated 
to  the  lower,  it  is  but  fit  and  natural  that  the 
higher  should  wither  away.  When  the  trees  of  the 
forest  deliberately  chose  the  worthless  and  trailing 
bramble  for  their  king,  it  was  but  a  just  nemesis 
that  fire  should  break  forth  from  the  bramble,  and 
devour  the  cedars  of  Lebanon.  But  if  you  take 
work — not  amusement,  not  indolence,  not  folly — as 
the  holy  and  noble  law  of  life,  it  shall  save  you 
from    a  thousand   petty   annoyances,   a    thousand 


WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT.  169 

precocious  egotisms,  a  thousand  sickly  day-dreams 
and  morbid  discontents.  I  hope  that  all  of  you 
will  admire  the  spirit  of  that  eloquent  and  noble 
knight  who  rode  into  the  streets  of  Orleans  with 
these  words  enwoven  in  gold  upon  the  purple 
housings  of  his  saddle,  Qui  non  lahorat,  neque  man- 
ducahit,  "  If  any  will  not  work,  neither  shall  he 
eat."  I  hope  that  all  of  you  will  feel  the  grandeur 
of  that  last  word,  spoken  at  York,  after  a  life  of 
splendid  energy,  by  the  dying  Emperor  Septimiu» 
Severus  to  his  sons — Laboremus,  "Let  us  toil/' 
Oh,  let  each  one  of  you  learn  now,  learn  indelibly, 
learn  even  in  your  boyhood,  that  "  to  pass  out  of 
the  world  in  the  world's  debt,  to  consume  much  and 
produce  nothing,  to  sit  down  at  the  feast  of  life  and 
to  go  away  without  paying  the  reckoning,"  to  have 
struck  no  blow  for  Grod,  to  have  done  no  service  to 
the  cause  of  righteousness,  is  discreditable  indeed 
even  to  a  man  ordinarily  high-minded,  but  is  to  a 
Christian  guilty  and  shameful ;  nay,  is  to  a  true 
Christian  even  impossible.  The  only  motto  for  him 
is,  "  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with 
thy  might."  The  only  true  description  of  his  life 
is,  "  Not  slothful  in  business,  fervent  in  spirit,  serv- 
ing the  Lord." 


170  WORKING   WITH.  OUR   MIGHT. 

1.  Now,  let  US  take  this  text  first,  and  test  it 
by  your  most  ordinary  life — your  work  here.  You 
know  that  your  main  external  work  here  is  to  profit 
by  the  studies  of  the  place  :  to  train  yourselves  by 
patience,  attention,  thought,  knowledge,  for  any 
position  to  which  in  future  life  God  may  call  you. 
Well,  I  am  not  in  the  least  afraid  to  say  that  in 
this,  as  in  all  else,  not  only  is  work  a  duty,  and 
energy  a  necessity,  but  also  that,  with  these,  success 
is  a  certainty.  Of  work  being  a  duty  I  will  say  no 
more,  because,  short  as  is  the  history  of  your  school, 
it  proves  how  well  you  have  learnt  that  noble  lesson. 
I  know  that  idleness  is  not  a  besetting  temptation 
of  this  school,  and  that  manly  diligence  is  common 
among  you,  and,  therefore,  as  a  school  you  have  bril- 
liantly succeeded.  And  yet,  perhaps,  there  may  be 
some  boys  among  you  who  think,  with  a  sense  of  dis- 
couragement, that  they,  individually,  have  failed. 
Now,  remember  that  by  success  in  the  highest  sense, 
we  do  not  mean  gaining  brilliant  honors,  or  reach- 
ing distinguished  attainments.  They  can  be  but 
for  the  few.  But  God  is  "  no  respecter  of  persons  ;" 
He  loves  all  of  us.  His  children,  and  wills  that  in 
the  best  sense  we  should  all  succeed ;  nor  are  the 
petty  differences  between  intellect  and  intellect  any- 


WORKING   WITH   OUR   MIGHT.  171 

thing  at  all  to  His  infinitude.  He  who  has  but  re- 
ceived the  two,  aye,  or  even  the  one  talent,  may  do 
as  good  service  to  God,  may  Ke  infinitely  dearer  and 
nobler  in  His  sight  than  he  who  has  received  the 
ten,  and  may  hear,  no  less  surely  than*  the  other, 
that  high  sentence  of  glorious  approval,  "  Servant 
of  God,  well  done  ! "  And  when  a  boy  who  has,  or 
thinks  he  has,  always  done  his  duty, — who  has,  or 
thinks  he  has  been  always  diligent, — does  not  get 
on,  lingers  at  the  bottom  of  his  form,  wins  no  prize, 
makes  no  appreciable  progress,  gets  superannuated, 
and  so  on, — where  does  the  failure  lie  ?  If  not  in 
a  want  of  diligence,  then  mainly,  I  think,  in  a 
want  of  energy.  To  get  on  in  this  sense,  a  boy — 
and  especially  a  boy  not  naturally  gifted — ^needs 
energy ;  he  needs  resolve ;  he  needs  purpose ;  he 
needs  heart ;  he  needs  hope  ;  he  needs  enthusiasm ; 
he  needs  courage ;  he  needs  undaunted  perseverance ; 
he  needs  the  power  to  say, — aye,  and  to  mean  it — 
I  will.  In  the  regions  of  that  which  is  at  all  pos- 
sible there  are  hardly  any  known  limits  to  that 
which  the  human  will  can  do.  If  a  boy  succeeds 
in  nothing,  is  poor  in  work  and  poor  in  games,  lets 
slip  all  his  opportunities  one  after  another,  —  de- 
pend upon  it  this  is  because  his   resolutions   have 


172  WORKING   WITH   OUR   MIGHT. 

been  feeble,  and  his  purposes  flaccid,  and  his  habits 
listless,  and  his  will  infirm ;  because,  in  a  word, 
there  has  been  no  iron  in  him,  but  only  wood  and 
straw.  Let  him  pray  and  labor,  let  him  believe 
and  hope  and  then  he  cannot  fail.  The  great  con- 
temporary statesman  gave  the  secret  of  Sir  Walter 
Kaleigh's  marvellous  achievements,  when  he  said, 
"I  know  that  he  can  toil  terribly." — That  is  one 
side  of  the  matter  :  humble  and  faithful  dependence 
on  the  help  of  God  is  another ;  and,  therefore, 
when  St.  Bonaventura,  the  Seraphic  doctor,  was 
asked  the  secret  of  his  amazing  knowledge,  he 
pointed  in  silence  to  the  crucifix,  which  was  the 
only  object  that  adorned  his  cell.  Or  a  et  labor  a, 
said  grand  old  Martin  Luther.  "  Prayer  and  pains- 
taking," said  Elliot,  the  lion-hearted  missionary, 
"  will  accomplish  everything ; "  nor,  if  he  have 
really  made  trial  of  this,  will  I  ever  believe  that 
any  boy,  in  this  or  in  any  school,  has  cause  to  say 
that  he  has  failed. 

So  nigli  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  Man, 
When  Duty  whispers,  low,  "  TTwu  muBt^ 

The  youth  replies  "  /  can.^'* 

2.     But,  secondly,  while  you   work,   you  must 


WORKING    WITH   OUR   MIGHT.  173 

remember  that  you  are  not,  or  ought  not,  to  be 
working  for  yourselves,  or  your  own  selfish  interests 
alone,  but  also,  and  mainly,  for  the  good  of  others. 
If  all  the  law  be  summed  up  in  those  two  command- 
ments, "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  God  with  all  thy 
tieart,"  and  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self," then,  assuredly,  that  work  for  others  should 
Degin  here  and  now.  We  are  not  alone  in  this 
world.  In  communities  like  these  it  is  emphatically 
true  that  no  man  liveth,  no  man  dieth  to  himself. 
The  lowest,  dullest,  youngest  boy  here,  does,  and 
must,  and  cannot  help,  in  some  way,  and  to  some 
degree,  influencing  others.  Not  more  surely  does 
every  word  you  speak  make  a  tremulous  ripple  on 
the  surrounding  air,  than  it  makes  a  ripple  in  the 
hearts  of  those  around :  but  with  this  difference, 
that,  whereas  the  pulse  of  articulated  air  seems 
soon  to  die  away,  on  the  other  hand — 

Our  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  live  for  ever  and  for  ever. 

How  vast  is  the  power  of  a  good  boy  for  good,  how 
rapid  is  the  influence  of  a  bad  boy  for  evil,  is  a  daily 
and  deepening  as  well  as  a  very  solemn  experience. 
Often  in  a  school,  or  in  a  house,  have  I  seen  a  good 
boy  make  virtue  fearless  and  confident,   and  vice 


174  WORKING  WITH   OUR   MIGHT. 

timid  and  ashamed.  Often  have  I  known  boys  by 
whose  mere  presence,  by  whose  countenance,  as  was 
said  of  the  Koman  Cato,  the  good  were  inspired  and 
the  wicked  checked.  Often,  too,  have  I  noticed  the 
reverse.  Just  as  you  may  have  seen  a  river  bright 
and  "  pure  as  the  tears  of  morning,"  and  pellucid 
to  its  very  depths,  until  it  reaches  some  one  spot, 
and  there,  receiving  some  dark  admixture,  its  waters 
are  stained,  and  the  herbage  withers  on  its  banks, 
and,  as  wave  after  wave  catches  the  local  taint,  the 
whole  flowing  river  is  thenceforth  polluted  and  per- 
turbed, and  any  beauty  it  has  left  is  but  the  irides- 
cent film  over  the  corruption  underneath, — even  so 
it  often  is  in  the  house  or  school.  And  yet  in  this 
case  also — in  the  endeavor  to  raise  the  tone  of 
those  around  you,  in  the  aim  to  make  your  school, 
your  house,  your  form,  your  dormitory,  your  chosen 
friends  better  than  you  found  them, — I  say  again 
that  as  work  is  a  duty,  and  energy -a  necessity,  so 
success  is  a  certainty.  Let  me  show  you  that  it  is 
so,  not  by  an  argument,  but  by  an  instance — one 
instance  where  history  might  furnish  hundreds — of 
whole  communities,  even  in  their  worst  condition, 
cleansed  and  ennobled  by  one  man's  influence  for 
good.     At  a  time   when   society  was   corrupt   and 


WORKING   WITH   OUR   MIGHT.  175 

hollow  to  its  heart's  core,  there  was  one — his  name 
was  Armand  de  Kance — ^who  lived  in  that  glittering 
world  with  immense  applause.  Kich,  noble,  eloquent, 
handsome,  he  drank  the  cup  of  pleasure  to  the 
dregs,  and  by  God's  grace,  while  yet  young,  found 
it  unutterably  bitter.  For  a  time  he  fell  into  de- 
spair ;  everything  seemed  to  fall  to  dust  in  his  hand, 
to  slip  into  ashes  at  his  touch.  But  he  was  not  one 
who,  as  it  were,  longed  only  to  purchase  a  cheap  for- 
giveness, and  then  still  to  clutch  at  every  not  abso- 
lutely forbidden  comfort.  No;  having  sinned  and 
suffered,  and  been  forgiven,  he  felt  that  henceforth 
his  life  was  consecrated,  not  to  easy  pietisms,  but 
to  heroic  endeavors.  He  shook  off  everything — 
wealth,  love,  home,  fame — and  retired  to  a  monas- 
tery deep  among  the  gloomy  mountain-woods, 
where,  as  you  approach,  you  pass  by  three  pillars 
of  iron,  and  on  the  first  of  these  is  engraved  the 
word  Charity y  and  on  the  second  Brotherly  Union, 
and  on  the  third  Silence.  To  this  monastery  he 
retired,  and  found  it  in  a  condition  truly  frightful. 
The  few  monks  left  in  it  were  corrupt,  degraded, 
and  ignorant  to  the  last  degree.  Among  these  he 
went  alone,  but  with  the  avowed  hope,  the  avowed 
purpose,  of  reforming  them ; — unarmed,  save  by  the 


176  WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT. 

force  of  God,  and  that  strong-sided  champion,  Con- 
science. Many  attempts  were  made  to  waylay  and 
mm'der  him ;  one  monk  tried  to  shoot  him  in  open 
day.  But  De  Ranee  never  flinched.  He  worked 
with  his  might,  and,  God  helping  him,  he  prosper- 
ed. His  most  violent  persecutors  became  his  most 
steadfast  friends.  The  monk  who  shot  at  him  be- 
came a  most  humble  and  holy  penitent.  And  thus, 
in  the  irresistible  might  of  a  firm  purpose  and  a 
holy  courkge,  did  one  man  triumph  over  his  own  en- 
emies and  the  enemies  of  God.  He  came  to  a  den 
of  robbers  and  left  it  a  house  of  prayer.  You  are 
not  in  a  corrupt  and  dangerous  place  like  that,  but 
in  a  Christian  and  an  English  school,  where  thou- 
sands of  good  influences  are  at  work  around  you ; 
and  yet,  is  there  nothing  that  you  can  do  ?  Are 
there  no  evils  to  check  ?  No  sins  to  conquer  ? 
No  characters  to  be  amended  ?  No  wrong-doings 
to  be  repressed.? — Oh,  assuredly,  there  is  not  one 
of  you  who  might  not  make  those  about  him  better  ; 
not  one  of  you  who  will  not  succeed  in  doing  so 
if  only  he  will  faithfully  try;  not  one  who,  in  trying, 
would  not  win  God's  richest  blessing  on  his  own 
heart  and  his  own  life. 

3.     But  how,  my  brethren,  is  this  work  possible, 


WORKING    WITH    OUR   MIGHT.  177 

how  is  any  other  work  worth  doing,  until  the  initial 
work,  the  work  of  self-conquest,  the  work  of  setting 
our  own  hearts  right  with  God  has  been  performed  ? 
He  who  would  help  others  to  be  better,  must  first  be 
good  himself;  he  who  would  point  others  to  the 
path  which  leads  to  their  Saviour's  feet,  must  first 
nave  found  it  for  himself.  But  how  find  it  ?  Can 
it  come  to  him  in  a  dream  ?  Can  he  stumble  on  it 
by  an  accident  ?  Can  he  yawn  it  into  being  by  a 
wish  ?  Or,  does  it  not  lie  rather  through  a  strait 
gate  ?  and  must  not  he  struggle  and  agonize  who 
would  pass  there- through .?  (l  think  that  we  are 
all  liable  to  the  danger  of  viewing  with  a  fatal  and 
paralyzing  indifierence  our  relation  to  God's  majestic 
law.  For  though  it  is  not  difficult  for  any  one  to 
walk  in  God's  ways,  who,  from  childhood  upwards, 
has  lived  in  the  light  of  his  earliest  prayers, — with 
how  few,  alas,  is  this  the  case  !  How  few  of  us  are 
unwounded.?  How  many  of  us  must  sadly  say 
."  The  crown  is  fallen  from  our  heads,  for  we  have 
sinned  ?  "  Innocence  of  heart,  my  brethren,  blame- 
lessness  of  life,  a  conscience  void  of  offence  towards 
God  and  towards  man, — these  are  easier  not  to  lose 
than  when  once  lost  to  recover ;  and  it  is  a  fatal 
thing,  a  fatally  perilous  arrogance  and  disbelid^to  be 

^^^^ 

U!ri7ERSIT7) 


178  WORKING    WITH    OUR    MIGHT. 

living  in  sin  yet  not  in  sorrow ;  in  rebellion  against 
God's  law,  yet  without  either  penitence  or  fear.  In 
this  respect,  therefore,  pre-eminently,;  work  is  a 
duty ;  the  work  of  conscious,  steady,  self-improve- 
nent :  the  will,  nay,  the  resolve ;  nay,  the  solemn 
vow ;  nay,  the  inflexible  absorbing  purpose,  that 
each  year  shall  see  us  better,  holier,  wiser  than 
the  last.  And  this  work,  too,  must  be  with  our 
might ;  it  must  be  in  penitence,  and  watchfulness, 
and  self-denial.  But  then  it  must  and  will  succeed  ; 
aye,  succeed  with  that  highest  of  all  successes, — 
that  success  which  includes  and  exceeds  all  others, 
and  beside  which  all  others  shrink  into  insigni- 
ficance,— the  prosperity  of  a  heart  at  peace  with 
God.  Other  prosperity  may  or  may  not  follow :  it 
generally  does,  but  it  is  no  great  matter  whether  it 
does  or  not,  and  when  it  does  not,  that  loss  is  more 
than  compensated  by  a  peace  of  mind  which  does  not 
even  desire  it.  No  true  work  since  the  world  began 
was  ever  wasted  ;  no  true  life  since  the  world  began 
has  ever  failed.  Oh,  understand,  my  brethren, 
those  two  perverted  words,  failure  and  success,  and 
measure  them  by  the  eternal  not  by  the  earthly 
standard.  What  the  world  has  regarded  as  the 
bitterest  failure  has  often  been  in  the   sight  of 


WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT.  179 

Heaven  the  most  magnificent  <Buccess.  When  the 
cap,  painted  with  devils,  was  placed  on  the  brows  of 
John  Huss,  and  he  sank  dying  amid  the  embers  of 
the  flame, — was  that  a  failure  ?  When  St.  Francis 
Xavier  died  cold  and  lonely  on  the  bleak  and  desolate 
shore  of  a  heathen  land, — was  that  a  failure  ? 
When  the  frail  worn  body  of  the  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  was  dragged  by  a  hook  from  the  arena, 
and  the  white  sand  scattered  over  the  crimson  life- 
blood  of  the  victim  whom  the  dense  amphitheatre 
despised  as  some  obscure  and  nameless  Jew, — was 
that  a  failure  ?  And  when,  after  thirty  obscure, 
toilsome,  unrecorded  years  in  the  shop  of  the  village 
carpenter.  One  came  forth  to  be  pre-eminently  the 
Man  of  Sorrows,  to  wander  from  city  to  city  in 
homeless  labors,  and  to  expire  in  lonely  agony  upon 
the  shameful  cross, — was  that  a  failure.^  Nay, 
my  brethren,  it  was  the  life,  it  was  the  death,  of 
Him  who  lived  that  we  might  follow  in  his  steps — 
it  was  the  life,  it  was  the  death,  of 'the  Son  of 
God. 

Oh,  may  you  learn  this  lesson  here  and  now,  in 
this  Christian  chapel,  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  a  Chris- 
tian school,  which,  like  every  Christian  school,  is  and 
must  be  a  Temple  of  the  living  God !     You  may 


180  WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT. 

learn  here  many  and  valuable  lessons  ;  but  the  day- 
may  come  when  all  others  shall  be  as  dust,  and  the 
lessons  learnt  in  this  chapel  be  as  pearls  and  gold. 
"  Believe  me,"  said  an  eminent  man,  speaking  to  a 
school  like  this,  "believe  one  who  tells  you,  from 
his  own  recollection,  that  if  there  be  any  time  or 
place  in  which  he  may  seem  to  have  met  the  angels 
of  God  on  his  pilgrimage  through  life,  it  was  in 
the  midst  of  a  congregation  and  in  the  walls  of  a 
chapel  such  as  this.  Years  have  rolled  away,  yet 
that  chapel,  with  its  joyful  and  mournful  recollec- 
tion, still  remains  a  distinct  and  blessed  spot  in  the 
memory  of  the  past.  The  words  which  were  there 
heard  return  again  and  again  with  the  freshness  and 
vividness  of  yesterday,  to  cheer  and  enliven,  to  con- 
sole and  solemnize,  the  labor  and  the  leisure,  the 
joys  and  the  sorrows,  not  of  one  only  who  listened  to 
them,  but  of  many  far  and  near,  who  will  remember 
those  hours  and  that  scene  as  long  as  life  and  mem- 
ory last.  What  has  once  been  may,  in  its  measure, 
be  yet  again."*  May  God  grant  it,  and  so  may  this 
School,  which  He  has  already  so  richly  blessed,  train 
up  many  and  many  a  youthful  son  who  shall  be  a 

*  "  Tliis  is  God's  Host ! " — A  Sermon  preached  in  Marlborough 
C5ollege  Chapel,  by  the  Very  Kev.  the  Dean  of  "Westminster. 


WORKING   WITH    OUR   MIGHT.  181 

profitable  member  of  the  Church  and  Common- 
wealth; and  not  this  only,  but — which  shall  be  a 
yet  more  blessed  and  enduring  crown, — many  and 
many  who,  working  with  their  might,  shall,  whethei 
they  prosper  on  earth  or  not,  be  partakers  hereaftei 
of  the  immortal  glory  of  the  Resurrection. 


IX. 

PHABISEES    AND    PUBLICANS. 


And  he  spake  this  parable  unto  certain  that  trusted  in  themselves 
that  they  were  righteous,  and  despised  others. — Luke  xvii.  9.* 


The  parable  which  our  Lord  spoke  on  this  occa- 
sion told  how  two  men  went  up  to  the  Temple  to 
pray,  a  Pharisee  and  a  Publican,  and  while  the  one 
made  his  prayer  a  self-complacent  catalogue  of  his 
own  virtues,  the  other  would  not  so  much  as  lift 
up  his  eyes  to  heaven,  but  smote  upon  his  breast, 
saying,  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner;  and  this 
man  went  down  to  his  house  justified  rather  than 
the  other.  You  will  see  therefore  at  once  that  the 
lesson  thus  addressed  to  the  proud  and  the  self- 
righteous  is  a  pointed  rebuke  to  self-righteousness 
and  pride ;  and  that,  strange  and  terrible  as  such  a 
lesson  might  appear,  those  who  despised  others  were 
taught  that  their  own  position  must  be  more  dan- 
gerous, more  alien,  less  pleasing  to  God,  than  that 

*  Preached  in  Westminster  Abbey  (Special  Eyening  Service, 
May  10,  1868). 

(183) 


184  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

of  those  whom  they  despised.  We  always  find  this 
fearless  directness,  this  immediate  pertinence,  in  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord.  Straight  and  swift  as  the  ar- 
row to  the  mark,  his  words  struck  full  into  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  His  hearers,  and  if  they  wounded, 
it  was  not  the  rankling  wound  of  an  enemy,  but  the 
faithful  and  blessed  wound  of  a  friend  who  stood  at 
hand  to  heal.  Were  there  hypocrites  among  his  hear- 
ers ?  He  tore  the  mask  from  their  faces,  and  held  up 
their  true  semblance  to  themselves  and  to  the  world. 
Were  there  penitents  ?  He  flung  the  white  robe 
of  his  mercy  over  their  offences,  and  told  them  how 
they  might  be  justified  and  cleansed.  Were  there 
the  indifferent  and  the  insolent  ?  the  thunders 
whose  echo  rolled  upon  the  desert  winds,  were  less 
terrible  than  the  awful  warnings  of  His  voice.  They 
who  would  rightly  deliver  Christ's  message,  must 
herein  study  His  example ;  they  must  address  them- 
selves to  the  spiritual  needs  of  their  hearers ;  and 
if  into  the  souls  of  the  humble  and  the  sorrowful 
their  words  should  descend  as  the  dew  of  God  upon 
the  tender  grass,  on  the  other  hand  to  the  hardened, 
and  the  scornful,  and  the  dead  in  heart,  that  word 
must  be  a  sword  to  pierce,  a  fire  to  calcine  into  dust, 
a  hammer  to  dash  in  pieces  the  flinty  heart.     Woe 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  185 

to  the  Church  which  answers  her  worshippers  accord- 
ing to  their  idols ;  which  sinks  her  voice  into  the 
dull  conventional  murmurs  of  "  peace,  peace,  when 
there  is  no  peace ; "  which  reflects  too  faithfully  the 
easy  and  polished  optimism  of  the  world  to  utter 
aloud  in  all  their  dread  significance  the  plain  stern 
messages  of  God.  If  we  would  learn  what  and  how 
to  speak,  we  must  go  back  to  read,  with  no  filmed 
vision,  with  no  biassed  perception,  with  no  glozing 
heart,  the  clear,  unmistakable  words  of  Christ; — 
remembering  only  that  He  spake  out  of  His  divine 
and  spotless  innocence,  and  we  speak  but  as  sinful 
among  the  sinful,  as  weak  and  dying  among  weak 
and  dying  men. 

There  were,  as  you  know,  two  classes  to  which 
our  Lord's  teachings  were  constantly  addressed ; 
on  the  one  hand  to  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  on  the 
other  hand  to  Publicans  and  sinners.  Now  mark 
what  a  rift  of  difference  separated  these  two  classes. 
The  Pharisees  were  the  well-to-do,  the  instructed, 
the  religious  classes,  they  were  called  Rabbi ;  they 
were  honored  in  the  synagogues;  their  profession 
of  sanctity  was  open  and  ostentatious  ;  it  was  worn 
like  the  phylactery  upon  their  foreheads,  and  like 
the  riband  of  legal  blue  which  they  made  so  broad 


186  PHARISEES   AND    PUBLICANS. 

upon  the  fringes  of  their  robes.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Publicans  and  sinners  were  the  dregs  of  man- 
kind,— the  offscouring  and  outcasts  of  the  people, 
the  fallen,  the  friendless,  the  dangerous,  and  the  de- 
spised. Their  very  livelihood  was  guilt,  their  name 
was  infamy.  A  Pharisee  regarded  their  mere  pres- 
ence as  contamination,  and  would  have  shaken  his 
robe  had  it  but  touched  them  in  his  walk.  Yet 
how  does  our  Lord  deal  with  these  two  classes. J* 
For  the  latter  we  find  no  single  word  of  bitter  irony 
or  crushing  denunciation;  awakement  to  the  sense 
of  guilt  and  the  need  of  repentance  was  easier  for 
them  in  whom  self-deceit  was  impossible,  nor  did 
they  need  warning  who  were  so  burdened  already 
with  the  world's  agony  and  shame.  But  Christ 
alone  spake  to  them  of  hope,  and  therefore  His 
teaching  dawned  upon  them  like  the  dayspring 
upon  the  darkness.  They  came  to  him  as  aWakened 
penitents,  and  He  treated  them  as  the  lost  sheep 
whom  He  came  to  save,  the  bruised  reed  which  He 
would  not  break,  the  smoking  flax  He  would  not 
quench;  and  washed,  and  cleansed,  and  justified, 
they  repaid  with  passionate  devotion  the  pity  which 
had  touched  their  neglected  and  trembling  souls. 
But  for  the  others,  for  them  whose  dead  hearts  mis- 


PHARISEES   AND    PUBLICANS.  187 

took  their  own  hypocrisy  for  holiness,  and  their  own 
ignorance  for  wisdom,  —  against  them  only  that 
divine  and  loving  voice  seems  to  ring  with  scorn 
and  indignation,  and  the  lips  that  breathed  the 
Beatitudes  to  the  poor  crowds  who  sat  listening 
among  the  mountain-lilies,  run  over  with  scathing, 
withering,  almost  pitiless  rebuke  at  their  smooth 
hypocrisy,  their  ceremonial  pedantry,  their  censori- 
ous orthodoxy,  their  intolerable  pride.  For  them 
the  crystal  river  of  his  tenderness  becomes  a  stormy 
torrent  of  living  fire.  To  the  Publicans  and  harlots 
He  gently  said  with  that  tone  which  broke  into 
sobs  over  lost  Jerusalem,  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye 
that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest;"  but  to  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  He 
cried  in  tones  of  doom  and  wrathfulness,  "  Ye  fools 
and  blind ;  blind  guides,  blind  Pharisees  ;  ye  ser- 
pents, ye  generation  of  vipers,  how  can  ye  escape 
the  damnation  of  hell  ?  " 

Burning  words,  my  brethren,  and  such  as  may 
well  astonish  us ;  men  who  have  borrowed  their 
morality  from  Christianity,  and  used  that  very 
morality  to  criticise  its  divine  source,  have  ventured 
to  condemn  them.  That  men  have  so  ventured 
to  condemn, — that  even  to  us,  who  believe  in  the 


188  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

Lord  Jesus  Christ,  they  come  with  a  shock  of  sur- 
prise as  though  at  first  sight  they  were  inconsistent 
with  loving  and  sacred  tenderness — ^is  a  proof  that 
they  need  our  most  serious  attention :  it  is  a  proof 
surely  that  they  belong  to  some  aspect  of  his  charac- 
ter which  hitherto  we  have  not  rightly  understood. 
And  such  is  pre-eminently  the  case.  Christian  art, 
Christian  eloquence,  Christian  song  have  long  made 
us  familiar  with  Christ's  meekness  and  lowliness  of 
heart ;  they  have  portrayed  him  most  often  as  the 
Man  of  Sorrows ;  they  have  lost  themselves  in  the 
infinitude  of  his  suffering  and  his  love.  But  it  is 
ever  our  danger  to  realize  but  half  the  truth  ;  and 
there  is  one  side  of  our  Lord's  character  which,  be- 
cause it  has  not  sufficiently  been  dwelt  upon,  has 
scarcely  exercised  its  due  influence  upon  our  minds. 
It  is  his  just  indignation.  The  ideal  of  the  Chris- 
tian life, — ^not  the  true  ideal,  but  the  common  one, 
— ^has  been  too  tame,  too  timid,  too  effeminate  ; 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  has  wanted  not  only 
that  brightness  and  joyance,  that  high  victorious 
faith,  that  royalty  of  happiness,  which  of  due  right 
belong  to  it,  but  it  has  been  lacking  also  in  that 
fire  and  force,  that  iron  in  the  blood,  that  dauntless 
courage,  that  glorious  battle-brunt  in  the  heart  of 


PHARISEES    AND    PUBLICANS.  180 

man,  which  are  yet  necessary  to  soldiers  of  the 
Cross.  Yes,  amid  the  perplexed  hypocrisies  of 
civilization,  amid  the  hollow  insincerities  which 
permeate  our  very  forms  of  speech, — it  seems  as 
though  we  never  dared  that  intensity  of  purpose, 
that  burning  moral  indignation,  that  splendid  pas- 
sion of  scorn  and  hatred  against  all  that  is  corrupt 
and  base,  which  lends  to  the  words  of  Psalmist  and 
Prophet  their  eternal  significance.  The  old  mighty, 
unswerving,  heart  of  Christendom  seems  dead.  We 
dare  not  face  our  thoughts ;  we  dare  not  act  up  to 
our  convictions  ;  we  are  full  of  conventional  phrases, 
and  polite  reticence,  and  soft  compromise,  under 
which  is  smothered  that  fire  which  of  old  burnt  in 
men's  hearts  till  at  the  last  they  spake  with  their 
tongue.  There  is  indeed  a  wrath,  as  you  read  in 
Scripture,  an  ignoble  wrath,  which  worketh  not  the 
righteousness  of  God ;  but  there  is  also  a  wrath  of 
righteous  indignation,  which  is  not  permissible 
only,  but  also  pre-eminently  noble.  Such  was  the 
wrath  which  nerved  the  strong  right  arm  of  Phine- 
has,  when  he  stayed  the  shameful  apostacy  of  Israel 
with  one  thrust  of  his  avenging  spear ;  such  was 
the  wrath  wherewith  Elijah  bearded  and  smote  at 
their  own  altar  the  priests   of  Baalim, — such  the 


190  PHARISEES   AND    PUBLICANS. 

wrath  which  flames  in  every  unenervated  heart 
under  intense  love  of  right  and  intense  hate  of 
wrong.  We  see  it  in  the  great  forerunner,  when 
he  braved  in  their  tyranny  the  bloodstained  tyrant 
and  the  adulterous  queen  ;  we  see  it  in  our  blessed 
Lord  when  he  overthrew  the  tables  of  the  money- 
changers and  drove  them  from  the  Temple  with  his 
knotted  scourge  ;  we  see  it  in  him  whose  whole 
nature  seems  to  have  caught  the  lightnings  which 
flashed  in  his  face  as  he  journeyed  to  Damascus ; — 
we  see  it  in  those  great  martyrs  who  with  "  the 
unresistible  might  of  weakness  shook  the  world  :  " — 
we  see  it  in  Origen,  and  Athanasius,  and  Augustine, 
and  Bernard,  and  Luther,  and  Knox,  and  Milton, 
and  Whitfield,  and  Wilberforce.  .There  was  no 
half-heart^dness  of  judgment,  no  timidity  of  com- 
promise, in  the  thoughts  and  words  of  men  like 
these.  They  spoke  as  their  Master  spoke,  and  if 
ever  a  worldly  age  is  to  be  startled  from  its  torpor, 
it  must  be  by  voices  like  to  theirs.  Such  men  may 
be  stigmatized,  as  hot  and  rude,  and  violent,  but 
oh  !  better  is  the  clearing  hurricane  than  the  brood- 
ing pestilence ;  better  their  sacred  fury  than  the 
sleepy  selfishness  of  a  smooth  prosperity :  better,  as 
has  been  truly  and  boldly  said,  better  are  agonies 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  191 

of  pain  and  blood  shed  in  rivers  than  souls  spotted 
and  bewildered  with  mortal  sin. 

But,  if  from  Christ's  example  we  must  learn  the 
duty  of  fervency,  and  the  necessity  for  righteous  in- 
dignation, I  know  nothing  which  it  more  solemnly 
imports  us  to  realize  than  the  conditions  which  J^in- 
dled  that  lofty  passion.  Is  there  anything  in  us,  or 
in  our  circumstances,  like  that  which  moved  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb,  and  made  the  messages  of  de- 
nunciation iall  with  such  fearful  emphasis  from  the 
lips  of  perfect  love  ?  Were  the  steps  of  our  Master 
in  this  city  now,  are  there  any  like  those  Publicans 
whom  He  so  deeply  pitied, — any  like  those  Pharisees 
against  whom  he  uttered  so  terrible  an  anger,  though 
He  well  knew  that  He  was  thus  awakening  the  re- 
sentment which  would  nail  Him  at  last  to  the  bitter 
cross  ? 

Ah,  my  brethren,  the  first  at  any  rate  of  these, 
classes  is  never  far  to  seek. .  Will  you  find  them  in 
this  fair  Cathedral .?  No !  they  are  not  here.  In 
God's  sight  indeed, — to  those  eyes  infinitely  brighter 
than  the  sun,  which  pierce  into  the  naked  human 
heart, — there  may  have "  been  some  whose  prayers 
this  evening  haVe  been  but  "a  noise  of  men  and 
women  between  dead  walls,"  and  there  may  be  some 


192  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

criminal  among  those  here  present,  whose  crime 
were  it  known  would  even  make  him  amenable  to 
the  broken  laws  of  man.  But  if  there  be  any  such, 
— and  we  know  that  ere  now  such  have  knelt  in  the 
anctuary  among  God's  Saints, — yet  it  is  not  of 
such  criminals  that  congregations  are  composed. 
Happy  might  it  be  for  us  if  we  could  gather  more 
of  them  into  our  Churches ; — ^happy  if  we  could 
make  them  feel  that  they,  even  they,  in  their  sinful- 
ness and  shame,  belong  indeed  to  the  Church's  fold; 
— ^happy  if  we  could  seek  them  as  the  shepherd 
seeks  his  lost  and  wandering  sheep ; — happy  if  we 
could  teach  them  to  believe  that  the  joy  of  the 
Church  on  earth  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth,  is 
the  same  in  kind  as  that  which  causes  a  fresh  strain 
of  exultation  to  ring  from  the  harps  of  heaven. 
So  far  as  we  can  do  this,  are  we  doing  the  work  that 
Christ  loves  best.  For  His  soul  yearned  towards 
them, — ^nor  was  there  any  lesson  that  He  better 
loved  to  teach  than  the  lesson  that  they  too  might 
still  repent  and  return  and  be  received  with  love  in 
the  home  from  which  they  had  wandered  ; — that  in 
spite  of  all  their  errors  and  all  their  crimes  they 
were  still  dear  to  that  heavenly  Father  who  is  full 
of  tenderness  to  all  His  children, — who  maketh  His 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  193 

sun  to  shine  upon  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  His 
rain  to  fall  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust. 

But  if  the  criminal  classes — the  Publican  and 
the  sinner — exist  no  less  in  modern  England  than  in 
ancient  Palestine,  and  if  we,  here  assembled,  assur- 
edly do  not  belong  to  the  number  of  open,  flagrant, 
and  defiant  sinners,  is  there  on  the  other  hand  no 
resemblance  in  us,  inwardly  no  less  than  outwardly, 
to  those  well-to-do,  respectable,  religious  classes, 
who  stood  so  fair  in  the  world's  eye,  but  whom  He 
who  was  the  Truth,  and  who  came  to  reveal  God 
to  man,  compared  to  whited  sepulchres  full  of  dead 
men's  bones, — to  graves  which  appear  not,  so  that 
they  who  walk  over  them  are  not  aware  of  them  ? 
Are  there  among  us  no  full-fed  Sadducees,  who  be- 
lieve neither  in  ^ngel  nor  spirit ; — no  temporizing 
Herodians  anxiotie  only  for  quiet  and  success ; — no 
orthodox  Scribes  fiercely  eager  about  the  letter  of 
the  law,  profoundly  ignorant  of  its  spirit ; — none 
like  those  worldly  Priests  and  violent  Pharisees, 
who,  in  the  desperate  blindness  of  the  human  heart, 
persuaded  themselves  doubtless  that  they  were  the 
friends  of  God,  while  they  were  arraying  every  en- 
gine of  popular  ignorance,  and  established  power, 

against  His  image  in  His  Son  ?    The  form  indeed  is 
13 


194  PHARISEES   AND    PUBLICANS. 

changed,  but  must  we  not  ask  ourselves  with  deep 
humility  whether  the  spirit  may  not  still  remain  ? 
We  too  are  not  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers,  or 
even  as  these  publicans  :  yet  can  it  be  that  some  of 
us  also  may  be  the  children  of  wrath,  even  as  others, 
— can  it  be  that  of  us  also  there  are  some  whose 
dull  and  selfish  lives  are  so  displeasing  to  God,  that 
they  shall  stand  hereafter  in  the  full  front  of  His 
displeasure,  and  hear  from  a  Father  most  loving, 
from  a  Judge  most  merciful,  that  chilling,  crushing, 
heart-appalling  sentence,  "  I  never  knew  you ;  de- 
part from  me,  ye  workers  of  iniquity." 

I  for  one,  my  brethren,  cannot  approach  this 
question  with  the  easy  confidence  of  our  smooth 
popular  theology;  I  cannot  profess  to  approach  it 
without  deep  and  anxious  misgiving;  I  cannot 
clearly  see  in  what  respect  we  are  exempt  from  dan- 
ger lest  our  religion  should  not  exceed  the  religion 
of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  Certainly  when  we 
look  round  us  on  the  world  of  ordinary  respectability 
it  looks  fair  enough.  Yet  it  takes  no  very  keen  ob- 
servation^ to  note  many  and  unlovely  stains  on  the 
white  surface  of  our  conventionality.  Strip  the  iri- 
descence from  the  surface  of  the  standing  pool,  and 
the   stagnant  waters   putrefy  below.     Under   that 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  195 

glittering  film  of  surface-respectability  lie  evils 
which,  as  has  been  well  said,  "vex  less,  but  mortify 
more,  which  suck  the  blood  though  they  do  not 
shed  it,  and  ossify  the  heart  though  they  do  not  tor* 
ture  it."  That  the  age  in  which  we  live  is  full  of 
restlessness  and  discontent, — that  it  is  an  age  but 
half  sincere  in  its  beliefs, — that  it  is  sinking  more 
and  more  deeply  into  luxury  and  self-indulgence, — 
that  it  is  agitated  with  an  emulous  and  feverish  de- 
sire for  wealth, — that  it  is  afflicted  with  a  deep  un- 
christian sadness  and  anxiety, — we  learn  not  so 
much  from  our  preachers  as  from  our  daily  moral- 
ists. It  is  an  age  not  of  great  crime,  but  of  little 
meannesses ;  there  are  few  murders,  but  plenty  of 
malice ;  little  blasphemy,  but  universal  cynicism ; 
rare  epen  thefts,  but  widespread  secret  dishonesty. 
And  the  worst  sign  is  that  the  Church  has  well-nigh 
ceased  to  be  fruitful  of  pre-eminent  saintliness ;  few 
lights  shine  out  distinctly  from  the  general  darkness. 
Good  and  evil  seem  to  be  at  truce,  "  lying  together 
flat  upon  the  world's  surface.  Our  very  conception 
of  goodness  seems  to  be  dwarfed  and  impoverished ; 
and  so  little  do  we  attain  the  high  and  heroic  ideal 
of  the  Gospel,  that  men  have  begun  to  argue  openly 
that  it  is  an  ideal  which  is  in  these  days  obsolett  and 


/ 


196  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

impossible.  Little,  alas !  do  we  act  up  to  our  liigh 
profession,  and  we  know  to  our  deep  shame  that  the 
world  has  some  ground  for  its  bitter  taunt,  that 
often  men  who  call  themselves  children  of  the  king- 
dom are  as  ready  to  take  offence,  and  as  prompt  to 
repeat  calumny,  and  as  hard  to  drive  a  bargain,  and 
as  eager  for  gain,  and  as  anxious  for  power,  and  as 
bitter  and  as  contemptuous  to  those  who  differ  from 
them  in  matters  of  opinion,  as  though  they  wero 
not  professed  disciples  of  Him  who  was  a  village 
carpenter, — of  Him  who  prayed  for  His  murderers, 
—of  Him  who  shrank  not  from  the  white  leper's 
loathly  touch,  and  felt  no  horror  when  the  tears  of 
the  forgiven  harlot  flowed  fast  on  His  unsandalled 
feet. 

But  since  it  is  fatally  easy  to  see  the  faults  of 
others,  let  us  look  rather  at  our  own  hearts.  And, 
though  most  of  us  may  be  wholly  free  from  open 
and  notorious  sins,  our  conception  of  our  high  call- 
ing in  Christ  Jesus  must  be  mean  indeed,  if  that 
suffice.  So  were  the  Pharisees  who  crucified  their 
Lord.  Fear,  happy  circumstances,  the  absence  of 
temptation, — nay,  even  prudential  calculation, — may 
save  a  man  from  sinning  thus ;  and  yet  the 
publicans  and  harlots  may  go  into  the  kingdom  of 


PHARISEES    AND   PUBLICANS.  197 

God  before  him.  Our  lives  may  be  correct  before 
men  ;  but  God  seeth  the  heart ;  and  our  hearts,  are 
they  right  with  God .?  Is  the  glory  of  the  Spirit 
indeed  bright  within  those  spiritual  temples,  or  is 
there  many  an  unhallowed  idol  in  their  inmost 
chambers  ?  The  real  danger  and  ruin  of  guilt  rests 
not  so  much  in  the  poison  which  it  infuses  into  so- 
ciety, not  so  much  in  its  deadly  and  fatal  conse- 
quences to  the  well-being  of  nations,  not  so  much 
in  any  outward  circumstances  of  punishment  and 
retribution,  as  in  that  alienation  of  the  soul  from 
God,  that  gradual,  slow-creeping  mysteiy  of  spiritual 
death  of  which  men  are  often  themselves  unconscious, 
until  God  suffers  them, — as  he  suffered  David, — to 
fall  into  some  great  sin,  which  lights  up  the  theatre 
of  the  soul  with  a  glare  of  unnatural  illumination, 
and  reveals  to  them  the  true  horror  of  themselves. 
Out  of  the  heart  proceed  evil  thoughts; — evil 
thoughts,  and  then,  as  though  thereby  the  flood- 
gates of  iniquity  were  opened, — murders,  adulteries, 
and  all  the  black  and  terrible  sins  whose  catalogue 
you  know.  When  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
dragged  into  Christ's  sacred  presence  a  sinful  and 
fallen  woman,  and  He  said,  "  Let  him  that  is  without 
sin  among  you  cast  the  first  stone  at  her," — ^is  there 


198  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

not  a  solemn  warning  to  us  in  the  fact  that  those 
words  pierced  the  thick  self-deception  of  dead  con- 
sciences, and  one  by  one, — without  even  His  eye 
upon  them  to  make  the  blush  burn  upon  the  guilty 
cheek, — one  by  one,  self-convicted,  self-condemned, 
—one  by  one,  white-robed  priest,  and  scrupulous 
Pharisee,  and  self-complacent  scribe, — one  by  one, 
boy,  and  maiden,  and  old  man,  beginning  from  the 
eldest  unto  the  last, — abased  by  the  sudden  recogni- 
tion of  their  own  inward  guilt,  they  rose  and  stole 
from  the  Temple  precincts,  and  left  none  there  save 
the  Kedeemer  and  the  redeemed  ?  Oh !  would  it 
not  be  so  with  us  if  Christ  were  here  ?  and  He  is 
here ;  and  though  now  we  see  Him  not,  one  day  we 
shall  stand  before  his  Holy  eye  ;  and  the  moral  sen- 
sibility must  be  very  dead  in  that  man,  who,  in  the 
,  filthy  rags  of  his  own  righteousness,  could  meet  that 
•  gaze  before  which  the  very  heavens  are  not  clean. 
Oh,  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves :  this  contented  ac- 
quiescence in  ignoble  efforts,  this  lukewarm  subser- 
vience to  a  low  and  unworthy  standard,  is  the  pecu- 
liar disease  of  this  century,  and  the  peculiar  danger 
of  a  soft,  luxurious,  unvexed  .career.  Alas  !  the 
primrose  path  may  lead  only  to  the  edge  of  the  pre- 
cipice ;  and  even  if  our  lives  be  externally  free  from 


PHARISEES   AND    PUBLICANS.  199 

every  grave  offence  against  the  law  of  God,  can  we 
afford  to  obliterate  wholly  from  our  memories  those 
two  parables  of  Christ  about  the  two  men, — wealthy, 
successful,  respected,  free  from  crime, — yet  for  one 
of  whom  there  was  only  that  thundercrash  of  judg- 
ment, "  Thou  fool,  this  night,"  and  the  silence  which 
followed  it ; — and  for  the  other  only  that  lurid  pic- 
ture— ^aye,  it  may  well  appal  us,  yet  Christ  drew  it 
— that  lurid  picture  of  one  carried  from  purple,  and 
fine  linen,  and  sumptuous  feast,  to  the  burning 
thirst  and  the  tormenting  flame  ? 

And  when  I  think  of  these  things,  my  brethren, 
I  feel,  as  I  said  before,  a  deep  misgiving, — a  mis- 
giving which  I  cannot  gloss  over  or  disguise, — lest 
some  of  us  be  guiltier  even  than  the  openly  guilty, 
and  lest  with  more  than  the  blessings  of  Chorazin 
and  Bethsaida  we  suffer  more  than  the  condemna- 
tion of  Sidon  and  of  Tyre.  Without  life  in  the 
spirit, — without  the  fire  of  God's  love  burning  bright 
on  the  altar  of  the  regenerated  heart, — how  can  we 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  And  the  dull 
comforts  of  the  world, — the  blind,  groping,  illiberal 
absorption  in  some  mechanical  routine, — the  earth- 
liness  of  a  life  toiling  for  riches,  clogged  with  cares, 
surfeited  with   indulgence, — these   are   the    things 


200  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

which,  if  we  he  not  very  humhle  and  very  careful, 
more  than  all  others  quench  the  spiritual  perception, 
and,  in  the  scornful  concentration  of  the  Psalmist's 
language,  make  the  heart  grow/a^  as  brawn.  It  is 
not  a  Christian  minister,  it  is  a  secular  historian 
who  says  that  of  all  unsuccessful  men,  in  every 
shape,  "whether  divine  or  human,  there  is  none 
equal  to  Bunyan's  Facing-both-ways, — the  fellow 
with  one  eye  on  heaven  and  one  on  earth, — who  sin- 
cerely preaches  one  thing  and  sincerely  does  another, 
and  from  the  intensity  of  his  unreality  is  unable 
even  to  see  or  feel  the  contradiction.  He  is  sub- 
stantially trying  to  cheat  both  God  and  the  devil, 
and  is  in  reality  only  cheating  himself  and  his 
neighbor.  This  of  all  characters  upon  the  earth 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  one  of  which  there  is '  no 
hope  at  all, — a,  character  becoming  in  these  days 
alarmingly  abundant."  Do  we  not  find  a  significant 
commentary  on  these  words  in  the  blank  surprise 
of  John  the  Baptist,  when  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
came  to  his  ministry — "  0  generation  of  vipers,  who 
hath  warned  you  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  ?  " 
The  robber  and  the  Publican,  the  ignorant  peasant 
and  the  brutal  soldier — it  is  natural  that  these 
should  come :  but  what  has  the  wild  rude  prophet 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  201 

of  the  desert  and  his  doctrine  of  repentance  to  do 
with  you,  and  your  dead  sanctities,  and  your  des- 
picable orthodoxies,  and  your  "  Stand  aside,  for  I 
am  holier  than  thou  ?  "  Aye,  it  might  well  seem 
impossible  that  anything  should  arouse  respectable 
men  whose  consciences  have  fallen  into  a  death-like 
slumber,  as  they  slave  at  their  farm  and  their  mer- 
chandise, and  think  that  they  have  successfully 
solved  the  problem  of  serving  alike  their  Mammon 
and  their  God.  There  are  some  men  whose  sins  are 
open,  going  before  to  judgment,  marshalling  them 
with  pointed  finger  and  tumultuous  condemnation, 
haling  them  with  open  violence  and  public  shame 
before  the  bar  :  but,  when  our  sins  are  only  following 
after  us  unseen,  with  stealthy  footsteps  and  invisible 
array,  when  the  long  accumulations  of  malice  and 
meanness,  and  avarice,  and  impurity — when  the 
false  and  settled  habits  of  a  worldly  and  selfish  re- 
ligionism gather  in  our  rear  in  ever-increasing 
multitudes,  ready  to  crowd  upon  the  stricken  mem- 
ory when  death  lets  in  upon  the  self-deceiving  soul 
the  chill  light  of  eternity, — then  our  condition, 
though  less  molested  and  less  notorious,  may  be 
more  full  of  peril.  Oh,  better  by  far  that  God 
should  break  us  with  His  indignation,  and  vex  us 


202  PHARISEES    AND    PUBLICANS. 

with  all  His  storms, — ^better  that  He  should  make  us 
suffer  in  every  fibre  of  our  being  the  ignoble  mar- 
tyrdom of  sin, — ^better  that  His  lightnings  should 
shatter  the  lowest  bases  of  our  earth-born  happi- 
ness, and  let  the  nether  fires  glare  in  our  very  faces, 
than  that  He  should  thus  suffer  our  souls,  under 
this  terrible  danger  of  His  wrath,  to  slumber  on, 
in  this  trance  of  despairing  insensibility,  in  this  un- 
consciousness of  commencing  death. 

For,  believing  that  God's  wrath  against  sin  is 
established  in  inexorable  laws, — ^believing  that  He 
has  revealed  that  wrath  as  plainly  as  if  He  had  en- 
graved it  upon  the  sun,  or  written  it  in  stars  upon 
the  midnight  sky, — then  casting  my  thoughts  be- 
yond death,  and  fixing  them  seriously  there,  my 
heart  shivers  like  a  leaf  in  some  cold  wind  ;  and  an 
earnest,  hearty,  entire  repentance,  a  searching,  honest, 
unshrinking  self-examination,  appear  to  be  the 
very  work  of  life.  Oh,  we  have  all  need  of  that 
prayer  of  the  Breton  mariner,  "  Save  us,  0  God, 
thine  ocean  is  so  large,  and  our  little  boats  so  small.'* 
Smoothly  indeed  now, — ^like  some  frail  vessel,  with 
white  sail  and  streaming  pennon,  we  may  be  gliding 
over  the  calm  and  sunlit  waves,  yet  without  God's 
love  we  may  find  at  last  that  this  dead  sea  of  life 


PHARISEES    AND    PUBLICANS.  203 

was  but  a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire, — a  sea  in 
which  no  haven  opens,  nor  any  light-house  shines, 
— a  sea  whose  depths  are  unfathomable  and  whose 
rolling  waters  have  no  shore.  Ah,  if  our  ship  foun- 
der in  that  sea,  it  will  be  too  late  to  know  things 
in  their  true  light,  too  late  to  be  alarmed.  Like 
those  of  whom  our  Saviour  so  sadly  spoke, — and  oh ! 
my  brethren,  consider  for  ourselves  if  the  picture  be 
not  as  terrible  as  it  is  true, — we  too  may  pass  away 
from  our  weeping  families,  from  our  mourning 
friends ;  we  may  leave  the  white  marble  to  record 
our  blameless  lives  ;  we  may  have  got  the  money 
or  the  success  for  the  sake  of  which  we  forgot  God, 
and,  passing  into  His  presence,  we  may  expect  to  be 
received  at  His  marriage-feast.  And  coming  then 
before  His  great  white  Throne  with  the  familiar 
words  "Lord,  Lord"  upon  our  lips,  we  shall  plead 
our  diligence  and  our  usefulness,  our  amiable  char- 
acters, our  decent  professions,  our  moral  lives,  but, 
even  while  our  tongues  falter  with  fear  and  misgiv- 
ing, the  numberless  phantoms  of  forgotten  but  re- 
corded and  unrepented  sins,  from  childhood  to 
youth,  from  youth  to  manhood,  from  manhood  to 
old  age,  shall  be  thronging  like  thick  clouds  between 
us  and  our  Judge ; — ^and,  like  the  tolling  of  some 


204  PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS. 

bell  of  death,  shall  fall,  stroke  after  stroke,  upon  our 
ears  the  judgments  of  Scripture,  "  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon ; "  "Ye  did  it  not  unto  these  little 
ones  ;"  "He  that  offendeth  in  one  point  is  guilty  of 
all ; "  "  He  that  trusteth  in  his  own  heart  is  a  fool ; " 
— and  then,  at  last,  in  a  voice  which  mingles .  the 
awfulness  of  death,  judgment,  and  eternity,  "  Cast 
out  the  unprofitable  servant." 

Oh,  to  no  one  of  us  may  this  ever  be  !  I  have  not 
spoken,  God  forbid  !  to  make  those  hearts  sad  which 
God  has  not  made  sad,  but  I  have  spoken  these 
words  of  warning,  my  brethren,  because  in  this  life 
we  have  all  need  of  frequent  warning — ^because  I 
have  supposed  them  to  be  needed  by  others,  know- 
ing them  to  be  needed  by  myself  And  let  us  re- 
member that  the  lessons  of  God's  wrath  against  sin 
are  in  reality  the  lessons  of  His  love  for  a  sinful 
race.  God  shews  His  love  by  destroying  that  in  us 
which  would  keep  us  from  Him.  He  would  save 
us,  even  by  fire,  from  that  spiritual  death  which, 
unawikened,  ends  in  eternal  death.  And  he  will 
save  us  if  we  seek  Him.  While  life  lasts  there  is 
possible  for  every  one  of  us  an  eternal  and  glorious 
hope.  The  purple  thunderclouds  which  gather 
around  a   sinful  path,  may  dim,  indeed,  but  they 


PHARISEES   AND   PUBLICANS.  205 

cannot  wholly  obliterate  the  rainbow  which  spans 
their  gloom.  I  look  on  this  great  congregation,  and 
I  say,  in  God's  name,  that  there  is  not  one  immor- 
tal being  among  you  all  for  whose  soul  the  great 
Father  who  made  it  does  not  yearn ;  not  one  whom 
He  does  not  long  to  reckon  in  the  days  that  He 
maketh  up  His  jewels;  not  one,  however  soiled 
with  sinful  stains,  for  whom  Christ  did  not  die. 
And  therefore  the  grace  of  God  still  calleth  you  to 
repentance.  If  we  perish,  we  perish  wilfully ;  but 
no  living  soul,  not  one  of  all  those  millions  of  human 
beings  who  are  now  breathing  on  the  surface  of  the 
globe,  need  be  cut  off  from  the  mercy  and  peace  of 
God.  Oh,  let  us  then  beware  of  hard,  dead,  pre- 
sumptuous, worldly  hearts — the  insidious  leaven  of 
the  Pharisees  and  of  Herod.  Let  us,  with  God's 
help,  work  out  our  own  salvation  with  fear  and 
trembling ;  and  that  we  may  soon  attain  to  that 
perfect  love  which  casteth  out  fear,  and  is  a  nobler 
and  better  thing,  let  us  all  breathe  this  very  night, 
not  with  the  lips  only,  but  in  the  deep  sincerity  of 
penitent  and  trembling  hearts,  that  heaven-blessed 
prayer  of  the  broken  and  contrite  publican, 

**  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner.** 


X. 

TOO    LATE. 


If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things 
which  belong  unto  thy  peace  !  but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine 
eyes. — Luke  xix.  42. 


On  Friday  eveniDg,  a  week  before  the  Cruci- 
fixion, our  Lord  arrived  at  Bethany,  the  sweet  and 
quiet  home  of  Martha  and  Mary  and  Lazarus  whom 
He  loved.  On  the  evening  of  the  next  day, — the 
Jewish  Sabbath, — the  little  family  made  in  His 
honor  that  memorable  feast,  in  which  the  love  of 
Mary,  glowing  into  sudden  rapture,  led  her  to  break 
the  vase  of  alabaster,  and  anele  with  precious 
spikenard  her  Saviour's  feet.  The  presence  of  the 
risen  Lazarus  added  to  the  scene  a  touch  of  awe. 
Many  Jews  from  Jerusalem,  who  had  strolled  to  the 
little  village  when  the  setting  sun  removed  the  Sab- 
bath restriction  of  distance,  mingled  among  the 
guests  ;  and  as  they  returned  to  the  city,  through 
the  tents  and  booths  of  the  thronging  pilgrims,  they 

*  Preached  at  Hereford  Cathedral  on  Palm  Sunday,  1871. 

(207) 


208  TOO   LATE. 

were  able  to  answer  the  eagerly-debated  question, 
whether  Jesus, — in  spite  of  the  violence  with  which 
He  had  been  treated  in  His  last  visit  to  Jerusalem, — 
would  still  venture  to  be  present  at  the  Paschal  feast. 
Yes  !  the  great  Prophet  would  indeed  be  there  ! 

The  rumor  spread  more  and  more  widely  as  the 
morning  dawned;  and  it  was  apparently  towards 
the  busy  noon,  that,  accompanied  by  a  vast  throng 
of  Galilean  pilgrims,  our  Lord  started  on  foot  from 
the  friendly  home  under  the  palms  of  Bethany. 
The  main  road  from  the  village  to  Jerusalem  wound 
round  the  southern  shoulder  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
and  when  it  brought  Him  near  the  fig-gardens  of 
Bethphage,  Jesus  dispatched  two  of  His  disciples, 
to  fetch  for  His  use  an  ass's  colt,  which  had  never 
before  been  ridden.  St.  Mark,  reflecting  the  vivid 
memories  of  St.  Peter,  tells  us  how  they  found  it  tied 
up  to  a  door  in  the  street ;  and  when  the  owners 
willingly  resigned  it,  the  disciples,  thrilling  with  in- 
tense excitement, — ^for  surely  now,  at  last,  the  great 
Messianic  kingdom  of  their  hopes  was  to  be  revealed 
— ^flung  their  garments  over  it  to  do  regal  honor  to 
their  Lord.  Then  they  lifted  Him  upon  it,  and  the 
'triumphal  procession  started  on  its  way.  They  had 
advanced  but   a   short   distance  when   there  cani(% 


TOO    LATE.  209 

round  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  another  festal  throng 
which  had  streamed  forth  to  meet  Him  from  Jeru- 
salem, waving  in  the  sunny  air  the  green  branches 
which  they  had  torn  from  the  neighboring  palms. 
All  were  full  of  awful  expectation.  The  tale  of 
the  recent  raising  of  Lazarus  was  on  every  lip.  At 
last,  swept  away  by  uncontrollable  emotion,  the 
disciples  began  to  raise  those  passionate  cries  of 
"  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David,"  which  formed  part 
of  the  great  Hallel  of  their  festal  services.  A  scene 
of  intense  enthusiasm  ensued.  Breaking  into  in- 
voluntary acclamations,  the  whole  multitude, — as 
they  pealed  forth  the  burden  of  the  strain, — ^began 
to  fling  off  their  talliths,  and  spread  them  on  the 
dusty  road  to  tapestry  His  path ;  while  others  kept 
plucking,  from  the  roadside  trees,  the  boughs  of 
fig  and  olive  to  strew  them  on  His  way.  And  so, 
with  ringing  Hosannas  and  waving  palms — one 
multitude  preceding,  another  following,  the  disciples 
grouped  around — the  Saviour  approached  the  Holy 
City.  It  was  no  seditious  movement  of  politic<al  in- 
dignation ; — it  was  no  insulting  vanity  of  self-as- 
serting pre-eminence.  It  was  but  the  triumph  of 
the  poor :  it  was  but  the  lowly  pomp  of  one  who 

rode  to  die.     The  haughty   Gentiles   ridiculed  the 
14 


210  TOO    LATE. 

very  record  of  it ;  and  yet,  besides  the  tragic  gran- 
deur of  its  real  majesty,  what  king's  or  consuFs 
triumph  has  had  one  tithe  of  such  power  to  move 
the  heart  ? 

At  the  time,  however,  even  the  disciples  did  not 
understand  it,  nor  did  they  recall  till  afterwards  the 
prophecy  of  Zechariah  about  "the  king  meek  and 
bringing  salvation,  lowly  and  riding  upon  an  ass." 
They  expected  something  Avholly  different  from 
what  occurred  ;  they  still  hankered  for  some  material 
victory.  Would  He  not,  even  now,  restore  the 
kingdom  to  Israel.?  Had  not  the  demons  dis- 
cerned Him,  and  fled  His  gaze  ?  Had  not  heaven 
recognized  Him,  and  lit  her  stars  ?  Had  not  earth 
known  Him,  and  hushed  her  winds  ?  Had  not  the 
rough  sea  heard  Him,  and  stilled  his  waves  ?  Why 
should  not  the  humble  Prophet  of  the  poor  now 
burst  forth  as  the  irresistible  avenger  of  the  mighty  ? 
Why  should  He  not,  even  now,  change  the  ass's  colt 
for  the  chariots  of  God  which  are  twenty  thousand, 
and,  amid  the  rushing  of  congregated  wings,  drive 
down  in  thunder  upon  insulting  Koman  and  apos- 
tate priest  ?  Had  not  the  supreme  moment  come  ? 
did  not  the  hand  point  to  the  hour  on  the  dial-plate 
of  heaven  ? 


TOO    LATE.  211 

Yes  !  the  moment  had  come :  yes !  the  hand 
pointed  to  the  horn', — but  not  as  they  hoped. — The 
road  from  Bethany  slopes  up  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
through  green  fields  and  shady  trees,  till,  as  it  sud- 
denly sweeps  round  towards  the  north,  Jerusalem, 
which  has  hitherto  been  hidden,  bursts  full  upon 
the  view.  Many  a  traveller  has  reined  his  horse  at 
that  memorable  spot  with  feelings  too  deep  for 
speech.  But  the  Jerusalem  of  that  day, — as  Jesus 
saw  it  under  the  burning  flood  of  vernal  sunshine, 
wrapped  in  its  imperial  mantle  of  proud  towers, — 
the  Jerusalem  whose  massive  ramparts  and  lordly 
palaces  made  it  a  wonder  of  the  world, — was  a 
spectacle  incomparably  more  magnificent  than  the 
decayed  and  crumbling  city  of  to-day.  And  as 
there, — through  the  transparent  atmosphere, — tow- 
ering above  the  deep  umbrageous  valleys  which  sur- 
rounded it, — the  city  reared  into  the  morning  sun- 
light its  multitudinous  splendors  of  marble  pinnacle 
and  golden  roofs, — was  there  no  pride,  no  gladness, 
in  the  heart  of  its  true  King  ?  Far  otherwise  !  An 
indescribable  sorrow  seized  Him.  He  paused.  The 
procession  halted.  All  the  tumult  of  acclaim  was 
hushed.  The  glad  cries  sank  into  silence.  And,  as 
Jesus  gazed,  a  rush  of  divine  sorrow  and  compassion 


luFIVBRSlfyl 


212  TOO    LATE. 

welled  up  from  His  inmost  heart.  He  had  dropped 
silent  tears  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus  ;  here,  over  fallen 
Jerusalem,  He  wept  aloud.  Five  days  afterwards, 
all  the  shame  of  His  mockery,  all  the  anguish  of  His 
torture,  were  unable  to  extort  from  Him  one  single 
sob,  or  to  wet  his  eyelids  with  one  trickling  tear ; 
but  now  an  infinitude  of  yearning  pity  and  trem- 
bling love  overmastered  His  whole  spirit,  and  He 
not  only  wept,  but  burst  into  a  passion  of  lamen- 
tation in  which  the  choked  voice  seemed  to  struggle 
for  utterance. — Strange  Messianic  triumph !  Mourn- 
ful inteiTuption  of  those  exultant  Hosannas  !  As 
He  gazed  on  David's  Sion, — as  He  stood  before  the 
Jerusalem  of  the  prophets  and  the  kings, — the  King, 
the  Deliverer,  the  son  of  David,  wept ! 

And  why  ? — At  His  feet  the  olives  were  flinging 
their  broad  shadows  over  green  Gethsemane,  the 
scene  of  His  coming  agony, — but  it  was  not  that. 
Opposite  Him,  on  the  rocky  plateau  beyond  the 
Kidron,  Calvary  was  waiting  for  His  cross  of  torture, 
— but  it  was  not  that.  Nay,  but  it  was  something 
which  no  eye  saw  but  His.  For  He  was  gazing, 
with  the  eagle  glance  of  prophecy,  on  a  scene  far 
different  from  that  which  met  his  actual  gaze. 
What  He  saw  was,  not  a  fair  and  holy  city,  sitting. 


TOO  LATE.  213 

like  a  lady  of  kingdoms,  upon  her  virgin  heights, — 
but  a  city  cowering,  abject,  degraded,  desolate.  To 
Him  the  faithful  city  has  become  a  harlot.  Her 
gold  has  become  dross ;  her  wine  mixed  with  water; 
and  now  her  hour  had  come.  In  the  Jerusalem  that 
was — the  glittering  Jerusalem  of  the  days  of  Herod 
and  Tiberius — He  saw,  down  the  dim  vista  of  fifty 
years,  the  Jerusalem  that  was  to  be, — the  desecrated 
Jerusalem  of  the  days  of  Titus.  He  saw  those 
lordly  towers  shattered, —  those  umbrageous  trees 
hewn  down, —  that  golden  sanctuary  polluted, — 
Judaea  Capta  a  desolate  woman,  weeping  under  her 
palm-tree  amid  her  tangled  hair.  In  the  flush  of 
the  existing  prosperity  He  foresaw  the  horrors  of 
the  coming  retribution.  The  eye  of  His  troubled 
imagination  beheld  the  600,000  corpses  carried  out 
of  those  city-gates ; — the  wretched  fugitives  cruci- 
fied by  myriads  around  those  walls ; — the  priests, 
swollen  with  hunger,  leaping  madly  into  the  de- 
vouring flames,  until  those  flames  had  done  their 
purging,  scathing,  avenging  work,  and  what  had 
been  Jerusalem,  the  holy,  the  noble,  was  but  a 
heap  of  ghastly  ruins  where  the  smouldering  em- 
bers were  half-slaked  in  the  rivers  of  a  guilty  na- 
tion's blood. 


214  TOO    LATE. 

And  as  He  saw  it, — as  this  vision  of  the  future 
rushed  red  upon  His  gaze, — as  He  recalled  the 
promise  of  peace  which  the  very  name  of  the  city- 
breathed,  and  knew  that  she  would  see  peace  again 
no  more, — this  Saviour  whom  they  rejected,  whom 
they  hated,  whom  they  crucified,  cried  aloud  in  a 
broken  voice,  and  with  eyes  that  streamed  with 
tears,  "  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in 
this  thy  day,  the  things  that  belong  unto  thy 
peace," — "  If  thou  hadst  known," — and  indeed  those 
words  seemed  to  summon  up  yet  another  picture, — 
not  of  Jerusalem  as  she  was, — not  of  J,erusalem  as 
she  Wds  to  he, — ^but  of  Jerusalem  as  she  might  have 
been, — yes  !  of  a  Jerusalem  little  less  glorious  than 
her  of  the  prophet's  vision,  descending  out  of 
heaven  with  her  walls  of  jasper  and  gates  of  pearl, — 
of  that  Jerusalem  about  whom  so  many  glowing 
hearts  have  sung, — 

Oh.  happy  harbor  of  the  saints, 

Oh  sweet  and  pleasant  soil, 
In  thee  no  sorrows  may  be  seen, 

No  pain,  no  grief,  no  toil. 

Thy  houses  are  of  ivory, 

Thy  windows  crystal  clear, 
Thy  tiles  they  are  of  beaten  gold, 

O  would  that  I  were  there ! 


TOO    LATE.  215 

Right  through  the  streets,  with  silver  sound, 

The  flood  of  life  doth  flow, 
Upon  whose  banks,  on  either  hand, 

The  trees  of  life  do  grow. 

Alas!  it  was  all  a  glorious  "if" — a  heartrending 
"  might  have  been."  It  was  as  when  a  traveller 
stands  on  some  great  misty  mountain-top, — longing 
to  gaze  on  the  magnificent  expanse  of  city,  and 
plain,  and  river,  and  the  rippling  sea, — and  for  one 
moment,  through  one  great  rent  of  the  enshrouding 
mist,  he  looks  on  a  fairy  vision,  bathed  in  sunlight 
and  overarched  with  iris, — ^but,  almost  before  he  has 
seen  it,  the  rent  in  the  mist  is  closed  once  more,  and 
ragged  and  grey  the  clouds  roll  up,  and  he  is  alone, 
and  miserable,  and  chill,  and  disenchanted.  Even 
so  was  it  with  that  momentary  glimpse  of  the  possi- 
ble Jerusalem;  it  was,  alas !  but  a  vanishing  "might 
have  been/'  and 

Of  all  sad  words  of  tongue  and  pen 

The  saddest  are  those  "  It  might  have  been.** 

It  might  have  been — ^but  it  was  not :  it  never  would 
be  now ;  and  love,  after  doing  all  in  vain,  could  only 
weep.  "  If  thou  hadst  known — even  thou — at  least 
in  this  thy  day — the  things  that  belong  unto  thy 
peace;"— if — and   there    sorrow    suppressed   the 


216  TOO   LATE. 

apodosis ;  and  when  the  sob,  which  broke  His  voice, 
was  over,  He  could  only  add  "  but  now  they  are  hid 
from  thine  eyes." 

And  herein,  my  brethren,  lies  the  meaning  of 
this  scene  for  us;  this  is  the  lesson  on  which  I 
would  desire  to  fix  our  hearts  this  evening.  May  I 
not  hope,  that,  even  now,  in  part  at  least,  your 
hearts  and  consciences  have  been  interpreting  it  into 
words  ?  It  is  an  awful,  but  it  is  also,  for  that  very 
reason,  a  blessed  lesson :  and  oh  may  Grod  give  me 
wisdom  to  speak,  and  give  you  hearts  to  realize, 
alike  its  awful  and  its  blessed  side ! 

1.  The  awful  side  is  this.  There,  before  the 
Saviour's  gaze  of  tears,  lay  a  city,  splendid  appar- 
ently and  in  peace,  and  destined  to  enjoy  another 
half  century  of  existence.  And  the  day  was  a  com- 
mon day ;  the  hour  a  common  hour :  no  thunder 
was  throbbing  in  the  blue  unclouded  sky ;  no  deep 
voices  of  departing  deities  were  rolling  through  the 
golden  doors :  and  yet, — soundless  to  mortal  ears  in 
the  unrippled  air  of  Eternity, — the  knell  of  her  des- 
tiny had  begun  to  toll :  and,  in  the  voiceless  dialect 
of  heaven,  the  fiat  of  her  doom  had  been  pro- 
nounced ;  and  in  that  realm  which  knoweth  and 
needeth  not  any  light  save  the  light  of  God,  the  sun 


TOO   LATE.  217 

of  her  moral  existence  had  gone  down  while  it  yet 
was  day. — Were  her  means  of  grace  over  ?  No,  not 
yet.  Was  her  Temple  closed  ?  No,  not  yet.  Were 
her  services  impossible  ?  No,  not  yet.  The  white- 
robed  Levites  still  thronged  her  courts ;  the  singers 
still  made  the  heavens  ring  with  their  passionate 
litanies  and  silver  Psalms  ;  the  High  Priest  yet 
sprinkled,  year  by  year,  the  gold  of  the  holiest  altar 
with  the  blood  of  unavailing  sacrifice.  No  change 
was  visible  in  her  to  mortal  eyes.  And  yet,  for  her, 
from  this  moment  even  until  the  end,  the  accepted 
time  was  over,  the  appointed  crisis  past, — the  day 
of  salvation  had  set  into  irrevocable  night.  It  was 
with  her  as  with  the  barren  fig-tree,  on  which,  next 
day,  the  Lord  pronounced  His  doom.  The  leaf  of 
her  national  life  was  still  glossy-green ;  the  sun  still 
shone  on  her;  the  rain  fell;  the  dew  stole  down; 
but  the  fruit  would  grow  on  her  no  more,  and  there- 
fore the  fire  was  kindled  for  the  burning,  the  axe 
uplifted,  which  would  crash  on  the  encumbering 
trunk.  She  was  not  spared  for  her  beauty ;  she  was 
not  forgiven  for  her  fame.  And  if  it  were  so  with 
the  favored  city,  may  it  not  be  so  with  thee,  and 
thee,  and  me  ?  What  shall  the  reed  of  the  desert 
do,  if  even  the  cedar  be  shattered  at  a  blow  ? — Yes : 


218  TOO    LATE. 

the  lesson  of  the  tears  of  Jesus  over  Jerusalem,  as 
she  gleamed  before  Him  in  the  vernal  sunshine,  a 
gem  upon  her  crown  of  hills,  is  this :  and  oh  may 
we  all  have  grace  to  learn  it  now — ^learn  it  even  in 
this  solemn  week :  that,  as  for  her,  so  for  us,  there 
may  be  a  too-late  ;  the  door  may  be  shut  without  a 
sound ;  the  doom  sealed  without  a  sigh ;  life  may 
be  over  before  death  comes.  It  is  not — (oh  mark 
this !) — ^it  is  not  that  Grod  loses  His  mercy,  but  that 
we  lose  our  capacity  for  accepting  it :  it  is  not  that 
God  hath  turned  away  from  us,  but  that  we  have 
utterly  paralyzed  our  own  power  of  turning  back  to 
Him.  And  then  the  voice  sighs  forth  with  unutter- 
able sadness,  "Ephraim  is  turned  unto  idols,  let 
him  alone."  Let  him  alone,  0  preacher,  for  he 
hates  the  words  of  truth !  let  him  alone,  0  Word  of 
God,  for  he  hath  set  his  face  as  a  flint  against  thee ; 
let  him  alone,  0  Conscience,  for  he  is  bent  on  mur- 
dering thee ;  his  sins  have  become  not  wilful  only 
but  willing;  he  has  chosen  them,  —  let  him  have? 
them.  He  has  loved  death  more  than  life,  and  lies 
rather  than  righteousness,  and  vice  more  than 
virtue,  and  the  world  more  than  heaven,  and  the 
lusts  of  the  flesh  rather  than  the  law  of  God.  And 
the  Spirit  of  God  hath  striven  with  him,  and  striven 


TOO    LATE.  219 

in  vain :  all,  all  hath  been  in  vain :  let  him  alone : 
let  him  eat  of  the  fruit  of  his  own  works,  and  be 
filled  with  his  own  devices. 

0  fearful  voice  of  most  just  judgment  I  and  yet 
observe  further,  as  a  still  more  solemn  source  of 
warning,  that,  at  the  very  instant  when  this  dread 
fiat  is  sounding  forth,  we  may  be  all  unconscious  of 
it.  Jerusalem  knew  not — she  was  wholly  unaware — 
that  this  was  the  last  day  of  her  visitation.  She 
had  quenched  the  light  of  life, — ^but  dreamed  not  of 
the  hastening  midnight :  she  had  silenced  the  voice 
of  warning,  and  suspected  not  that  the  hush  which 
followed  was  but  the  hush  before  the  hurricane, — 
the  silence  before  the  trumpet's  sound.  Sick — she 
knew  it  not :  dying — she  knew  it  not.  "  Ephraim 
hath  gray  hairs  upon  him,  and  he  knoweth  it  not." 
It  is,  alas  !  ever  thus.  This  is  the  very  method  of 
God's  dealings  with  us, — not  by  stupendous  mira- 
cles but  by  quiet  warnings ;  not  by  shocks  of  catas- 
trophe, but  by  processes  of  law.  The  Holy  Light  is 
but  a  beam  shining  quietly  in  the  darkness,  easily 
strangled  in  the  wilful  midnight :  the  pleading  voice 
is  but  a  low  whisper  amid  the  silence,  easily  drowned 
in  the  tempest  of  the  passions.  And  so,  though  the 
day  of  grace  has  its  fixed  limits,  and  these  may  bo 


220  TOO   LATE. 

often  narrower  than  the  day  of  life,  we  neither  know 
what  those  limits  are,  nor  when  they  are  transcend- 
ed. And  if  ours  be  a  guilty  ignorance,  a  penal  blind- 
ness, we  cannot  know.  So  that  then  the  presump- 
tuous sinner  may  be  in  this  awful  condition : — A 
temptation  may  come  to  him, — perhaps  a  temptation 
to  some  besetting  sin  to  which  he  has  often  and  often 
yielded,  and  stifling  the  last  faint  whisper  of  con- 
science he  may  sin  once  more ;  and  after  that  con- 
science speaks  no  more ;  and  for  the  sake  of  that 
one  last  miserable  sin,  he  has  lost  his  soul.  Or  per- 
haps it  is  one  last  call  to  repentance ;  and  because 
he  has  rejected  it  so  often,  he  carelessly  and  wilfully 
once  more  rejects  it ;  and  after  that,  the  call  comes 
again  no  more  for  ever,  and  the  things  that  belong 
unto  his  peace  are  hid  for  ever  from  his  eyes.  Life 
continues,  but  it  is  really  death  ;  and  on  the  dead 
soul  in  the  living  body  the  gates  of  the  eternal 
tomb  have  closed. 

2.  Can  there  be  a  blessed  side  to  truths  so  true, 
and  yet  so  full  of  solemnity  and  judgment  as  these  ? 
Yes,  if  we  will  it,  a  most  blessed  side.  Seeing  that 
there  is  good  in  the  world,  and  there  is  evil  in  the 
world,  and  that  the  evil  is  ruin,  and  misery,  and 
death,  and  that  the  good  is  blessing,  and  hope,  and 


TOO   LATE.  221 

peace, — and  that  we  can,  if  we  will,  choose  the  evil 
and  reject  the  good  and  so  destroy  ourselves  for  time 
and  for  eternity, — what  can  God  in  his  mercy  do 
more  merciful  than  to  make  evil  terrible  to  us,  if  so 
be  we  may  be  averted  from  it  ?  And  the  more 
terrible  evil  becomes  to  our  inmost  nature, — the 
more,  out  of  very  hatred  and  horror,  we  turn  away 
from  it  as  from  our  utmost  bane,  the  happier  are  we. 
And  therefore  everything  is  blessed  which  is  meant 
to  make  us  tremble  at  sin,,  every  doctrine,  however 
awful,  is  blessed  if  it  helps  to  startle  us  from  that 
fatal  drunkenness,  to  wean  us  from  that  fatal  fascina- 
tion. The  object  of  all  terror  is  persuasion :  of  all 
warning  prevention :  of  all  danger  repentance.  The 
object  of  all  that  I  have  said  is  this,  "  Judge  there- 
fore yourselves,  brethren,  that  ye  be  not  judged  of 
the  Lord."  All  our  lives  are  in  some  sense  a  "  might 
have  been ; "  the  very  best  of  us  must  feel,  I  suppose, 
in  sad  and  thoughtful  moments,  that  he  might  have 
been  transcendantly  nobler,  and  greater,  and  loftier 
than  he  is :  but,  while  life  lasts,  every  "  might  have 
been  "  should  lead,  not  to  vain  regrets,  but  to  manly 
resolutions ;  it  should  be  but  the  dark  background 
to  a  "may  be"  and  a  "will  be"  yet.  "Arise  then, 
and  flee  to  the  stronghold,  ye  prisoners  of  hope." 


222  TOO   LATE. 

Every  one  of  us  may  be  saved :  every  one  of  us 
may  be  forgiven ;  every  one  of  us  may  be  sanc- 
tified: every  one  of  us  may  break  even  the  iron 
fetters  of  besetting  sins ;  every  one  of  us  may  be 
brought  to  love  so  well  everything  that  is  good, 
and  true,  and  pure,  that  we  shall  loathe,  even  in 
thought,  the  thing  that  is  evil.  As  we  love  our 
souls  let  us  strive  after  this  end  with  every  energy 
of  our  lives.  If  we  are  striving, — not  loving  our 
sins,  but  hating  them, — not  yielding  to  them,  but, 
heart  and  soul,  fighting  against  them,  then  Grod  is 
with  us  and  we  are  safe :  but  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  have  for  months  and  years  been  growing  colder, 
deader,  more  indifferent  to  God  and  Chri-st, — if  we 
can  listen  now  unmoved  to  what  would  once  have 
impressed  and  affected  us, — if  we  can  dally  now 
with  temptations  which  we  should  once  have  shun- 
ned,— ^if  we  can  now  commit  sins  from  which  we 
would  once  have  shrunk, — ^by  these  marks  we  may 
be  sure  that  our  day  of  grace  has  been  declining, — 
that  the  shadows  of  its  evening  are  lengthening  out, 
— and  that,  if  no  change  occur,  then,  "  ere  the  sun 
of  our  natural  existence  has  gone  down,  the  sun  of 
our  spiritual  day  may  have  set,  never  to  rise  again." 
Oh,  my  brethren,  who  knows  whether  these  very 


TOO   LATE.  223 

days  of  Passion  Week  may  not  be  for  us  the  day  of 
our  visitation  ?  Let  us  all  pray  that  they  do  not 
pass  in  vain  ?  Now  the  door  of  repentance  stands 
open,  and  Heaven's  light  streams  through  it ; — ^now 
in  all  love  and  gentleness  the  voice  of  our  Saviour 
calls : — now  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  still  strives  with 
us  in  our  wanderings,  still  pleads  for  us  in  our  fail- 
ures ; — ^now,  but  who  shall  say  how  long  ?  not  for 
ever:  not,  it  may  be,  even  all  our  lives :  not  even  it 
may  be,  for  many  days.  Oh,  to-day  if  ye  will  hear 
his  voice,  harden  not  your  hearts. 


XI. 

PRAYER,  THE  ANTIDOTE  TO  SORROW. 


And  being  in  an  agony,  He  prayed. — Luke  xxii.  44.* 


When  the  last  supper  was  over,  and  the  last 
hymn  had  been  sung,  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles — 
with  the  one  traitor  fatally  absent  from  their 
number — ^went  out  of  the  city  gate,  and  down  the 
steep  valley  of  the  Kidron  to  the  green  slope  of 
Olivet  beyond  it.  Solemn  and  sad  was  that  last 
walk  together;  and  a  weight  of  mysterious  awe 
sank  like  lead  upon  the  hearts  of  those  few  poor 
Galileans  as  in  almost  unbroken  silence, — through 
the  deep  hush  of  the  Oriental  night, — ^through  the 
dark  shadows  of  the  ancient  olive-trees, — ^through  the 
broken  gleams  of  the  Paschal  moonlight, — they  fol- 
lowed Him,  their  Lord  and  Master,  who,  with  bowed 
head  and  sorrowing  heart,  walked  before  them  to 
His  willing  doom. 

*  Preached  before  Her  Majesty  the   Queen,  in  the  private 
Chapel,  "Windsor ;  and,  subsequently,  at  Marlborough  College. 
15  (225) 


226  PRAYER,    THE    ANTIDOTE   TO    SORROW. 

That  night  they  did  not  return  as  usual  to 
Bethany,  but  stopped  at  the  little  familiar  garden 
of  Gethsemane,  or  "  the  oilpress."  Jesus  knew  that 
the  hour  of  His  uttermost  humiliation  was  near, — 
that  from  this  moment  till  the  utterance  of  that 
great  cry  which  broke  His  heart,  nothing  remained 
for  Him  on  earth,  save  all  that  the  human  frame  can 
tolerate  of  torturing  pain,  and  all  that  the  human 
soul  can  bear  of  poignant  anguish ; — till  in  that  tor- 
ment of  body  and  desolation  of  soul,  even  the  high 
and  radiant  serenity  of  His  divine  spirit  should  suf- 
fer a  short  but  terrible  eclipse.  One  thing  alone 
remained  before  that  short  hour  began ;  a  short  space 
was  left  Him,  and  in  that  space  He  had  to  brace  His 
body,  to  nerve  his  soul,  to  calm  His  spirit  by  prayer 
and  solitude,  until  all  that  is  evil  in  the  power  of 
evil  should  wreak  its  worst  upon  His  innocent  and 
holy  head.  And  He  had  to  face  that  hour, — to  win 
that  victory — as  all  the  darkest  hours  must  be  faced, 
as  all  the  hardest  victories  must  be  won — alone.  It 
was  not  that  He  was  above  the  need  of  sympathy, — 
no  noble  soul  is ; — and  perhaps  the  noblest  need  it 
most.  Though  His  friends  did  but  sleep,  while  the 
traitor  toiled,  yet  it  helped  Him  in  His  hour  of 
darkness  to  feel  at  least  that  they  were  near,  and 


PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE   TO    SORROW.         227 

that  those  were  nearest  who  loved  Him  most. 
"  Stay  here/'  He  said  to  the  little  group,  "  while  I 
go  yonder  and  pray."  Leaving  them  to  sleep,  each 
wrapped  in  his  outer  garment  on  the  grass.  He  took 
Peter  and  James  and  John,  the  chosen  of  the  cho- 
sen, and  went  about  a  stone's  throw  off.  But  soon 
even  iheir  presence  was  more  than  He  could  endure. 
A  grief  beyond  utterance,  a  struggle  beyond  endur- 
ance, a  horror  of  great  darkness,  overmastered  Him, 
as  with  the  sinking  swoon  of  an  anticipated  death. 
He  must  be  yet  more  alone,  and  alone  with  God. 
Keluctantly  He  tore  Himself  away  from  th^ir  sus- 
taining tenderness,  and  amid  the  dark-brown  trunks 
of  those  gnarled  trees  withdrew  from  the  moonlight 
into  the  deeper  shade,  where  solitude  might  be  for 
Him  the  audience-chamber  of  His  Heavenly  Father. 
And  there,  till  slumber  overpowered  them.  His 
three  beloved  Apostles  were  conscious  how  dreadful 
was  the  paroxysm  through  which  He  passed.  They 
saw  Him  sometimes  with  head  bowed  upon  His 
knees,  sometimes  lying  on  his  face  in  prostrate  suf- 
fering upon  the  ground.  And  though  amazement 
and  sore  distress  fell  on  them, — though  the  whole 
place  seemed  to  be  haunted  by  Presences  of  good 
and  evil  struggling  in  mighty  but  silent  contest  for 


228  PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW. 

the  eternal  victory, — yet,  before  thej  sank  under  the 
oppression  of  troubled  slumber,  they  knew  that  they 
had  been  the  dim  witnesses  of  an  unutterable 
agony,  in  which  the  drops  of  anguish  which  dropped 
from  His  brow  in  that  deathful  struggle  looked  to 
them  like  gouts  of  blood,  and  yet  the  burden  of 
those  broken  murmurs  in  which  He  pleaded  with 
His  Heavenly  Father  had  been  ever  this,  "If  it  be 
possible, — yet  not  what  I  will,  but  what  Thou 
wilt." 

What  is  the  meaning,  my  brethren,  of  this  scene 
for  us  ?  What  was  the  cause  of  this  midnight  hour  ? 
Do  you  think  that  it  was  the  fear  of  death,  and  that 
that  was  sufficient  to  shake  to  its  utmost  centre  the 
pure  and  innocent  soul  of  the  Son  of  Man  ?  Could 
not  even  a  child  see  how  inconsistent  such  a  fear 
would  be  with  all  that  followed  ; — with  that  heroic 
fortitude  which  fifteen  consecutive  hours  of  sleepless 
agony  could  not  disturb; — ^with  that  majestic 
silence  which  overawed  even  the  hard  Roman  into 
respect  and  fear; — with  that  sovereign  ascendency 
of  soul  which  flung  open  the  gate  of  Paradise  to 
the  repentant  malefactor,  and  breathed  its  compas- 
sionate forgiveness  on  the  apostate  priest  ?  Could  He 
have  been  afraid  of  death,  in  whose  name,  and  in 


PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW.         229 

whose  strength,  and  for  whose  sake  alone,  trembling 
old  men,  and  feeble  maidens,  and  timid  boys  have 
faced  it  in  its  worst  form  without  a  shudder  or  a 
sigh  ?  My  brethren,  the  dread  of  the  mere  act  of 
dying  is  a  cowardice  so  abject  that  the  meanest  pas- 
sions of  the  mind  can  master  it,  and  many  a  coarse 
criminal  has  advanced  to  meet  his  end  with  unflinch- 
ing confidence  and  steady  step.  And  Jesus  knew, 
if  any  have  ever  known,  that  it  is  as  natural  to  die 
as  to  be  bom ; — that  it  is  the  great  birthright  of  all 
who  love  God ; — that  it  is  God  who  giveth  His  be- 
loved sleep.  The  sting  of  death — ^and  its  only  sting 
— ^is  sin ;  the  victory  of  the  grave — and  its  only  vic- 
tory— is  corruption.  And  Jesus  knew  no  sin,  saw 
no  corruption.  No,  that  which  stained  His  fore- 
head with  crimson  drops  was  something  far  deadlier 
than  death.  Though  sinless  He  was  suffering  for 
sin.  The  burden  and  the  mystery  of  man's  strange 
and  revolting  wickedness  lay  heavy  on  His  soul; 
and  with  holy  lips  He  was  draining  the  bitter  cup 
into  which  sin  had  infused  its   deadliest   poison.* 

*  Is.  liii.  4-6;  Rom.  iv.  25;  1  Cor.  xv.  3.  "Non  mortem 
homiit  simpliciter,  quatenus  transitus  est  e  mundo... ;  peccata 
vero  nostra,  quorum  onus  illi  erat  impositum,  sua  ingenti  molo 
eum  premebant."     Calvin  ad  Matt.  xxvi.  37. 


230         PRAYER,    THE    ANTIDOTE    TO   SORROW. 

Could  perfect  innocence  endure  without  a  shudder 
all  that  is  detestable  in  human  ingratitude  and  hu- 
man rage?  should  there  be  no  recoil  of  horror  in 
the  bosom  of  perfect  love  to  see  His  own, — for  whom 
He  came, — absorbed  in  one  insane  repulsion  against 
infinite  purity  and  tenderness  and  peace  ?  It  was  a 
willing  agony,  but  it  was  agony ;  it  was  endured  for 
our  sakes ;  the  Son  of  God  suffered  that  He  might 
through  suffering  become  perfect  in  infinite  sympa- 
thy as  a  Saviour  strong  to  save. 

And  on  all  the  full  mysterious  meaning  of  that 
agony  and  bloody  sweat  it  would  be  impossible  now 
to  dwell,  but  may  we  not  for  a  short  time  dwell  with 
profit — may  not  every  one  whose  heart — ^being  free 
from  the  fever  of  passion,  and  anfretted  by  the  pet- 
tiness of  pride — is  calm  and  meek  and  reverent 
enough  to  listen  to  the  messages  of  God,  even  be 
they  spoken  by  the  feeblest  of  human  lips, — may 
we  not  all,  I  say,  learn  something  from  this  frag- 
ment of  that  thrilling  story,  that — "being  in  an 
agony.  He  prayed."  One  or  two  lessons  however 
slight— if  any  have  ears  to  hear — ^let  me  draw  from 
this. 

For  oh  how  much  it  may  mean  for  us  ;  not  it 
may  be  to  you  as  yet  in  the  spring  of  life,  though 


PKAYER,   THE   ANTIDOTE   TO   SORROW.         231 

even  you  have  had  solemn  warnings  how  death  may 
stand  unseen  and  silent  even  at  the  right  hand  of 
youth.  But  however  bright  the  brightest  of  your 
lives  may  hitherto  have  been, — and  may  God  your 
Heavenly  Father  make  your  boyhood  very  bright 
for  all  of  you,  that  the  memories  of  an  innocent 
and  happy  dawn  may  refresh  you  in  life's  burning 
noonday  and  life's  grey  decline !  yet  for  every  one  of 
you,  I  suppose,  sooner  or  later  the  Gethsemane  of 
life  must  come.  It  may  be  the  Gethsemane  of 
struggle,  and  poverty  and  care; — it  may  be  the 
Gethsemane  of  long  and  weary  sickness ; — ^it  may  be 
the  Gethsemane  of  farewells  that  wring  the  heart 
by  the  deathbeds  of  those  we  love ; — it  may  be  the 
Gethsemane  of  remorse,  and  of  well-nigh  despair, 
for  sins  that  we  will  not — but  which  we  say  we  can- 
not overcome.  Well,  my  brethren,  in  that  Gethse- 
mane— aye,  even  in  that  Gethsemane  of  sin — no  an- 
gel merely, — ^but  Christ  Himself  who  bore  the  bur- 
den of  our  sins, — ^will,  if,  we  seek  Him,  come  to  com- 
fort us.  He  will,  if  being  in  agony,  we  pray.  He 
can  be  touched.  He  is  touched,  with  the  feeling  of 
our  infirmities.  He  too  has  trodden  the  winepress 
of  agony  alone ;  He  too  has  lain  face  downwards  in 
the  night  upon  the  ground ;  and  the  comfort  which 


232  PRAYER,    THE    ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW. 

then  came  to  Him  He  has  bequeathed  to  us — even 
the  comfort,  the  help,  the  peace,  the  recovery,  the 
light,  the  hope,  the  faith,  the  sustaining  arm,  the 
healing  anodyne  of  prayer.  It  is  indeed  a  natural 
comfort — and  one  to  which  the  Christian  at  least 
flies  instinctively.  When  the  waterfloods  drown  us, 
— when  all  God's  waves  and  storms  seem  to  be  beat- 
ing over  our  souls, — when  "  Calamity 

Comes  like  a  deluge,  and  o'erfloods  our  orimes 

Till  sin  is  hidden  in  sorro-w — "  \ 

oh  then,  if  we  have  not  wholly  quenched  all  spiritual 
life  within  us,  what  can  we  do  but  fling  ourselves  at 
the  foot  of  those  great  altar  stairs  that  slope  through 
darkness  up  to  God  ?  Yes,  being  in  an  agony,  we 
pray ;  and  the  talisman  against  every  agony  is  there. 
And  herein  lies  the  great  mercy  and  love  of  God, 
that  we  may  go  to  Him  in  our  agony  even  if  we  have 
never  gone  before.  Oh,  if  prayer  were  possible  only 
for  the  always  good  and  always  true,  possible  only 
for  those  who  have  never  forsaken  or  forgotten  God, 
— if  it  were  not  possible  for  sinners  and  penitents 
and  those  who  have  gone  astray, — then  of  how  in- 
finitely less  significance  would  it  be  for  sinful  and 
fallen  man !     But  our  God  is  a  God  of  Love,  a  God 


233 

of  mercy.  He  is  very  good  to  us.  The  soul  may 
come  bitter  and  disappointed,  with  nothing  left  to 
offer  him  but  the  dregs  of  a  misspent  life ; — the 
soul  may  come,  like  that  sad  Prodigal,  weary  and 
broken,  and  shivering,  and  in  rags;  but  if  it  only 
come — the  merciful  door  is  open  still  and  while  yet 
we  are  a  great  way  off  our  Father  will  meet,  and 
forgive,  and  comfort  us.  And  then  what  a  change 
is  there  in  our  lives !  They  are  weak  no  longer ; 
they  are  discontented  no  longer ;  they  are  the  slaves 
of  sin  no  longer.  You  have  seen  the  heavens  grey 
with  dull  and  leaden-colored  clouds,  you  have  seen  the 
earth  chilly  and  comfortless  under  its  drifts  of  im- 
melting  snow :  but  let  the  sun  shine,  and  then  how 
rapidly  does  the  sky  resume  its  radiant  blue,  and 
the  fields  laugh  with  green  grass  and  vernal  flower  I 
So  will  it  be  with  even  a  withered  and  a  wasted  life 
when  we  return  to  God  and  suffer  Him  to  send  His 
bright  beams  of  light  upon  our  heart.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  pain  or  misery  under  which  we  are 
suffering  will  necessarily  be  removed, — even  for 
Christ  it  was  not  so;  but  peace  will  come  and 
strength  will  come  and  resignation  will  come  and 
hope  will  come, — and  we  shall  feel  able  to  bear  any- 
thing which  God  shall  send,  and  though  He  slay  us 


234         PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW. 

we  still  shall  seek  Him,  and  even  if  the  blackest 
cloud  of  anguish  seem  to  shroud  His  face  from  us, 
even  on  that  cloud  shall  the  rainbow  shine. 

Yet  do  not  think,  my  brethren,  that,  because 
God  never  rejects  the  prayer  of  sinner  or  sufferer, 
that  therefore  we  may  go  on  sinning,  trusting  to  re- 
pent when  we  suffer.  That  would  be  a  shameful  abuse 
of  God's  mercy  and  tenderness ;  it  would  be  a  frame 
of  mind  which  would  need  this  solemn  warning,  that 
agony  by  no  means  always  leads  to  prayer ;  that  it 
may  come  when  prayer  is  possible  no  longer  to  the 
long  hardened  and  long  prayerless  soul.  I  know  no 
hope  so  senseless^  so  utterly  frustrated  by  all  experi- 
ence, as  the  hope  of  what  is  called  a  deathbed  re- 
pentance. Those  who  are  familiar  with  many  death- 
beds will  tell  you  why.  But  prayer,  my  brethren, 
— God's  blessed  permission  to  us,  to  see  Him  and 
to  know  Him,  and  to  trust  in  Him — that  is  granted 
us  not  for  the  hours  of  death  or  agony  alone,  but  for 
all  life,  almost  from  the  very  cradle  quite  to  the 
very  grave.  And  it  is  a  gift  no  less  priceless  for 
its  alleviation  of  sorrow  than  for  its  intensification  of 
all  innocent  joy.  For  him  who  would  live  a  true 
life  it  is  as  necessary  in  prosperity  as  in  adversity, 
— in  peace  as  in  trouble — ^in  youth  as  in  old  age. 


PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW.  235 

Here  too  Christ  is  our  example.  He  lived,  as  we  may 
live,  in  the  light  of  His  Father's  face.  It  was  not 
only  as  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  it  was  not  only  in  the 
moonlit  garden  of  His  agony,  or  on  the  darkening 
hills  of  His  incessant  toil,  that  prayer  had  refreshed 
His  soul ;  but  often  and  often,  every  day  during 
those  long  unknown  years  in  the  little  Galilean 
village, — daily  and  from  childhood  upwards  in  sweet 
hours  of  peace,  kneeling  amid  the  mountain  lilies  or 
on  the  cottage  floor.  Those  prayers  are  to  the  soul 
what  the  dew  of  God  is  to  the  flowers  of  the  field  ; 
the  burning  wind  of  the  day  may  pass  over  them,  and 
the  stems  droop  and  the  colors  fade,  but  when  the 
dew  steals  down  at  evening,  they  will  revive.  Why 
should  not  that  gracious  dew  fall  even  now  and 
always  for  all  of  us  upon  the  fields  of  life  ?  A  life 
which  has  been  from  the  first  a  life  of  prayer, — a 
life  which  has  thus  fi-om  its  earliest  days  looked  up 
consciously  to  its  Father  and  its  God, — ^will  always 
be  a  happy  life.  Time  may  fleet,  and  youth  may 
fade, — as  fleet  and  fade  they  will ;  and  there  may  be 
storm  as  well  as  sunshine  in  the  earthly  career ;  yet 
it  will  inevitably  be  a  happy  career,  and  with  a  hap- 
piness that  cannot  die.  Yes.  this  is  the  lesson 
which  I  would  that  we  all  might  learn  from  the 


236  PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO   SORROW. 


thought  of  Christ  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane ; — 
the  lesson  that  Prayer  may  recall  the  sunshine  even 
to  the  dark  and  the  frozen  heart ;  but  that  there  is 
no  long  winter,  there  is  no  unbroken  night,  to  that 
soul  on  which  the  Sun  of  Kighteousness  has  risen 
with  healing  in  His  wings. 

And  that,  my  brethren,  because .  true  prayer  is 
always  heard.  We  read  in  the  glorious  old  G-reek 
poet  of  prayers  which,  before  they  reached  the  por- 
tals of  heaven,  were  scattered  by  the  winds;  and 
indeed  there  are  some  prayers  so  deeply  opposed  to 
the  wiU  of  God,  so  utterly  alien  to  the  true  interests 
of  men,  that  nothing  could  happen  better  for  us 
than  that  God  should  refuse,  nothing  more  terrible 
than  that  He  should  grant  them  in  anger.  So  that 
if  we  pray  for  any  earthly  blessing  we  must  pray  for 
it  solely  "  if  it  be  God's  will,"  "  if  it  be  for  our  highest 
good ; "  but,  for  all  the  best  things  we  may  pray 
without  misgiving,  without  reservation,  certain  that 
if  we  ask  God  will  grant  them.  Nay  even  in  asking 
for  them  we  may  know  that  we  have  them, — for 
what  we  desire  we  ask,  and  what  we  ask  we  aim  at, 
and  what  we  aim  at  we  shall  attain.  No  man 
ever  yet  asked  to  be,  as  the  days  pass  by,  more  and 
more  noble,  and   sweet,  and  pure,  and  heavenly- 


PRAYER,    THE    ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW.         237 

minded, — no  man  ever  yet  prayed  that  the  evil 
spirits  of  hatred,  and  pride,  and  passion,  and  world- 
liness,  might  be  cast  out  of  his  soul, — without  his 
petition  being  granted  and  granted  to  the  letter. 
And  with  all  other  gifts  God  then  gives  us  His  own 
self  besides, — He  makes  us  know  Him,  and  love 
Him,  and  live  in  Him.  "  Thou  hast  written  well  of 
me,"  said  the  Vision  to  the  great  teacher  of  Aquin- 
um,  "  what  reward  dost  thou  desire  ?  '* — "  Non  aliam, 
nisi  te  Domine  " — "  no  other  than  Thyself  0  Lord,'' 
was  the  meek  and  rapt  reply.  And  when  all  our 
restless,  fretful,  discontented  longings  are  reduced 
to  this  alone,  the  desire  to  see  God's  face  ; — when 
we  have  none  in  Heaven  but  Him,  and  none  upon 
earth  whom  we  desire  in  comparison  of  Him  ; — 
then  we  are  indeed  happy  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
evil  thing,  for  then  we  have  but  one  absorbing  wish, 
and  that  wish  cannot  be  refused.  Least  of  all  can 
it  be  refused  when  it  has  pleased  God  to  afflict  us. 
"  Ye  now  have  sorrow,"  said  Christ,  "  but  I  will  see 
you  again,  and  your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your 
joy  no  man  taketh  from  you."  Yes,  when  God's 
children  pass  under  the  shadow  of  the  Cross  of 
Calvary,  they  know  that  through  that  shadow  lies 
their  passage   to   the  Great   White  Throne.      For 


238  PRAYER,    THE   ANTIDOTE    TO    SORROW. 

them  Gethsemane  is  as  Paradise.  Grod  fills  it  with 
sacred  presences ;  its  solemn  silence  is  broken  by 
the  music  of  tender  promises ;  its  awful  darkness 
softened  and  brightened  by  the  sunlight  of  heavenly 
faces,  and  the  music  of  angel  wings. 


74^  O?  THB 

THE    END. 


UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA 
LIBRARY 


Due  two  weeks  after  date. 


>•  i-  rs 


30m-7,'12 


YB  27878 


W^^V^io 


